"it's the greening of the trees

that really gets to me... 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 trees seem to say, a new slick leaf

unfurling like a fist to an open palm. I'll take it all. "

​

-Ada Limón, "Instructions on Not Giving Up"