"Hope never stops at all..."

"Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all...”
― Emily Dickinson

It calls me up
from the hypnosis of magical
thinking,

to leave the
poppy fields
where
sweetest dreams
invite escape

it
begs
us

heed the
incessant,
insistent
echoing
of its relentless
"yes,"
above the dirge
of
"what if,"
and
"it
just
might
never
be..."

this is a song that
whispers:
"today could be different,
better,
a promise
fulfilled,
the question
answered...

today the blighted flower
could bloom,
a dormant seed might take root
in the fallow soil
of your weariness...

today,
you could finally
find your
voice
your soul-mate,
your one
true
thing...

"today,"
it sings,
"the test comes back
positive,
a spark takes
flight,
a flame ignites,
love
is found,
sorrow
lost..."

today,
hope turns again towards
the reach of a
dawning
light,
and leaps into
a strange abyss where
hearts wait
in silent
wonder
watching for the
unseen to lift them, once again,
above the frail
agony of
despair...

today,
hope finds the barren
on her knees,
Joseph bound in chains,
Gandhi turning the
other cheek,
Mandela watching
the sun move
from east to west
through the barred windows of
a prison cell...

hope tells us...pain is
temporary,
love is inevitable,
and
peace is
possible...

it is the thing
that
calls us
to
rise...and
sing
with what
perches in our
soul...

"...and never stop at all.'”