“unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.”

The Poem

Instructions on Not Giving Up - Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. 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 tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

The Beverage
Edmunds St. John 'Heart of Gold' 2014 El Dorado Vermentino + Grenache Blanc

This is a Very Crowd-sourced Newsletter today. It's like a Very Special Episode.

First, the poem is via Claire Lewandowski, who sent it to me while we were sitting in class on Tuesday night. Claire and I are both Midwest natives who met in DC before both ending up in the same grad school program this year. She also did a very nice job as the cantor at 7:30a Mass this morning. Also, we are both extremely tired all the time. Thanks for this lovely poem, Claire.

The night before Claire sent me today's poem, I had received a Letter To The Editor about the lack of wine in my beverage content. (Letters To The Editor is what we are calling Twitter DMs now, please take note.) This omission was strange because I am a known consumer of many glasses of wine. My prior hesitation was rooted in my almost complete lack of knowledge about wine. Really, all I can say is “I like that” or “I don’t like that.”

I know what I like: chilled, medium-body Pinots from the Willamette Valley; spicy, weird Spanish reds; whatever my dad is into (Flowers, Nickel and Nickel, honestly, anything he finds is good). And what I don’t: anything referred to as oaky or buttery (which means I am constantly wary of Chardonnay).

This Letter [DM] to [On] the Editor [Twitter] was timely because I had just finished a very nice glass of wine. I had basically ordered at random. I like Grenache in red blends (see: Spanish, spicy), and the waitress said that Vermentino is similar to a Sauvignon Blanc or Grüner Veltliner. So I was down to try.

My dinner companion and I both had the ~~Edmunds St. John 'Heart of Gold' 2014 El Dorado Vermentino + Grenache Blanc~~. We both liked it.