I did a drive today I have done many times over the last thirty years. I always notice new buildings, dirt piles, and traffic changes. But today I recalled all the times I have driven north across the Potomac River at Point of Rocks just as the leaves unfurled and a green skin grows over the changes in the landscape. Home again to walk the dog, admire the weedy garden, bring a few things into the studio where I have a hand painted sign that reminds me to “keep going” — and yes I’ll take it all.
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.
–Ada Limon, from Instructions On Not Giving Up in Poem-a-Day, 5/15/2017