Martha reads the poem “Instructions on Not Giving Up” by the poet Ada Limón. Used with permission. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “”Instructions on Not Giving Up,” a Poem”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I came across a lovely poem that I wanted to share with you.
It’s called Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon.
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me.
When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come.
Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us. A return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty.
Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say. A new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm. I’ll take it all.
That was beautiful, Martha.
Can you tell us the name of the poem again?
It’s Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon.
Thank you very much.
If you’ve got a poem you’d like to share with us so that we can share it with everyone else, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.
