After Ada Limon’s “Instructions for Not Giving Up” by Kate Marshall Flaherty

June 22, 2023
Poem title: After Ada Limon’s “Instructions for Not Giving Up” Poet name: Kate Marshall Flaherty Poem: Take just one small maple nose—off your car even, where the wipers smear it into yellow streaks. Don’t curse its sisters for their mess, don’t sweep them violently from the cement path, or rake them with rage from the front grass. No, pick just one green piece from the path, tenderly, as if picking up a baby bird, a piece of beach glass, a gemstone clapped free from its engagement ring. Pick it up with both fingers and place it gingerly in the palm. Look at it as if it wasn’t the mess it makes, or the work it wields, and rather reflect on how alike it is—witness and witness-er, green thing and greenhorn—see if you can leave behind the chores in your head that mark your messy relationship; see if you can consider its seed like a new thought that will turn work to wonder, tomorrow’s task to today’s green buds of now. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Kate Marshall Flaherty Previously published in Digging (Aeolus House, 2022). Kate just celebrated the launch of her latest poetry book, Titch, Piquante Press, in May, and Digging, Aeolus House last year. She’s recently been published in the Literary Review of Canada, Trinity Review, Vallum, Untethered and others. She guides StillPoint Poetry Writing and Editing Circles live and online, and writes spontaneous p.o.e.m.s (poems of the extraordinary moment) for charity and fun.