Instructions on Not Giving Up

The “us” in “Instructions on Not Giving Up” has gone through a difficult time. The poet alludes to both “what winter did to us” (Line 10) as well as “the mess of us, the hurt, the empty” (Line 12). Even the bold “Spring” (Line 5) day has a “slate / sky” (Lines 4-5) tinged with “rains” (Line 5). The poet has struggled, and while this strife has technically passed, the emotional gloom lingers.

The blossoms on the trees in the landscape around the poet seem like “trinkets” (Line 7), cheap and insubstantial. Their petals have fallen like “the confetti of aftermath” (Line 8). It is only the “greening of the trees” (Line 5) that allows her to see that there is rebirth, a “continuous living” (Line 11). The “patient, plodding” (9) of the tree’s “green skin / growing” (Lines 9-10) gives the poet hope that she, too, can be resilient. Like the “tree seems to say” (Line 13), she can “take it all” (Line 14). The cycle of life—death and rebirth—is ceaseless. It is important to move on from hardship, to go beyond the superficial, and understand that the “slick new leaf / unfurling” (Lines 13-14) must occur. In her essay for Oprah Daily about the poem, Limón noted the tree symbolizes a need to “surrender to ongoingness” (See: Further Reading & Resources) despite despair.