hope

I wonder if hope wanders around, sometimes lost, trying to find us, too.

Hope is a thing with feathers, Emily said,

but when I think of hope, I think about bedroom slippers,

hot coffee, and cool mornings.

I think about getting out of bed, putting feet on the floor, and brushing teeth.

I think about how these are acts of faith, of belief

in the possibility wrapped inside each new day

and those days yet to come.

That is how I know hope is a thing we seek

and find in the mirror

looking back at us with the same eyes.

It makes me wonder if hope wanders around, sometimes lost,

trying to find us, too.



When I think of hope, I think of a pregnant belly,

swollen with promise and unanswered questions.

I think about the cosmic signal felt deep in the womb,

in the nested eggs, in the bud of a flower

that says: now. The time is now.

I think about unborn babies

that sleep and swim until they are ready for us,

not the other way around.

That is how I know hope is a thing that waits patiently

while we do not,

and I wonder about how we fill the sacred space

of the in-between.



When I think of hope, I think of the weightlessness of words

that are thought and felt but unspoken.

I think about how they issue forth like a soundless beacon, a prayer:

please, please, please.

That is how I know hope is a thing that does not belong to me

or to you.

It is ours.

I think about how we borrow or share it

like cups of sugar

when our neighbor has none.

I think about where the words go

slipping away from us, up into the sky,

and I think about clouds.

I wonder if they are filled with hope.

I wonder if that is why they float.