Ada Limón begins "Instructions on Not Giving Up" by describing the spring blossoms of a crabapple tree and a cherry tree. She seems to judge these flowers as garish and too temporary and confesses that, in contrast, "it's the greening of the trees" that she finds much more compelling. The "shock" of this "confetti," colorful blossoms littering the sidewalk, gives way to the "patient, plodding" green leaves that are slowly coming in. Then, Limón smoothly connects this growth to human hurt: the leaves represent our ability to keep going, despite pain and trauma. The poem culminates with the image of "a new slick leaf / unfurling like a fist" that seems to hold out its hands to the world, open to whatever positives and negatives may come.
The poem accomplishes these rhetorical movements swiftly and concisely, never straying from the highly focused images of these spring trees.
