06 May




   Ada Limón - 1976-

Instructions on Not Giving Up

https://poets.org/poem/instructions-not-giving





The green skin



The green skin spread out late across this world

The seas already teeming - it isn’t natural

To live under the sun - those rays

Those drying winds



The Green began with algae forming humps

Of jelly on the shoreline, washed by waves

And pulled by tides under a drawing moon

 


Then there were liverworts  

Not yet with stems or roots

Like curly flapjacks in the shadow at the waters edge 



And later others came with leaves

Releasing spores and wind borne seeds

Then trees, climbed mountains, spread across the plains



And in a breathe of geological time

They’re making forests, jungles, flowers

And birdsong , jaguars - and bees


 

but this is not our element - and we have left our home

We’re water babies - but now needing air

And live like spacemen that cannot return


 

 


Anita Greg 06/05/2020






 

 

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