Image credit: Vichy Deal

These things they say of hope
I cannot see them
Find myself blind
It seems to me that times of hope
Were times that would precede despair
It was the thing I clinged to
When nothing else was there

And yet it remains each day I rise
And take deep breaths to draw in light
I feed myself and stretch and tease
A sense of equilibrium
From these old bones, and through this stems
A kind of acceptance which may be
Another kind of hope

I’ve set my eyes so many times
On some distant goal and fragile dream
That perhaps I missed the gifts
That far more quietly float downstream
Took for granted health
And friends and home
The hearth to which my day returns
Because for other aims my soul here writhes
And in its thwarted dreaming burns

And so this ancient hatred that I feel
For glimmering hope is but a lie
Perhaps each day on such tenuous grounds
I far more frequently rely, it seems
I am perhaps a fool within my soul
To judge my own belief and will
Upon such a scarlet bird that flies
But will not alight on my window sill

So hope is not the thing I have
When all else fails and deep inside
I know with wounded pride that life
Will not deliver what I wish
It is the quieter beating heart
That in such disappointment yet drums on
And gives me yet this will to live
And other dreams to dream upon

(c) Helen Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved