Hope
I wonder when it first showed up on the planet.
Was it when God said let there be light?
Or did it show it’s glory when the first rainbow spread itself across the sky like a peacock taking flight?
Hope
Did it strut on the scene when man huddled in a cave, marveled at the first flicker of fire’s bright light?
Or did it mosey up the Nile,
lazy as a smile, chilling out in one hundred degree heat for a while?
I
Wonder
Did it strike out like Matthew Henson seeking new places to go?
Daring anyone to stop it or stamp out its glow?
Hope
Is
Tenacious
You know
And it’s got some nerve really.
When the first ships set sail through the middle passage
Hope, skipped on board
Barking orders sometimes
Yelling at the top of its lungs
“Naw, Naw, don’t y’all dare die, ‘cause I’ve got something for you on the other side
So feed that baby stones if you gotta
Or sleep a hundred deep
Cause hopes in the house
And
Martin’s up the street
Malcolm’s on the way
And Zora’s got a story that she’s gonna write for you one day.”
Hope
Has some gall,
Marching off to Auschwitz—yellow stars pinned to its flesh
Watching smoking pipes spit
family ashes deep into the night.
Yet there it sat on a cold concrete floor
Side by side with balding women,
men with rotting teeth and skin that showed ever single bone.
Despairing but not despairing
Ever present still
Pounding its fist saying,
I don’t care what anyone says
I’m still here.
So tomorrow you will tell your story
Tomorrow you will rise again, higher than before
And when the fire comes next time
Mississippi burning bright
Goodman and Schwerner will be a new kind of light
A brief statement to the world
That will never burn out.
And Jonas, with his shots, will vaccinate us all
No rifles this time; no walls.”
Hope
She brings her sisters children to live with her when her own cupboards are bare.
Hope
Wears a suit sometimes
Other days it’s dancing hip hop
Sporting baggie pants
Doing an Irish jig or perhaps a Parisian dance.
So
Watch it.
Your hope may be in someone who looks nothing like you.
Hope
She crosses the Atlantic in inner tubes
Lands on your shores, unkempt
Mowing your lawns,
Nursing your babies,
Squinting at lady liberty.
Hope.
Yesterday he showed up in Iraq.
Someone said they saw him in China too.
My eighty-year-old daddy swears Hope knocked at his door, a social security check in hand, and a pension plan to beat the band.
Hope.
Italians pinch her
Middle Easterners kiss both her cheeks.
Americans write books about her.
Asians sit and seek, meditating at her feet.
Oh
She gets beaten down sometimes
And remembers when she was robbed,
And they were marching off to death again.
But Hope always prevails.
It calls out to you and me across the centuries
To believe
To reach out
To hold on
To lift up
To teach
To get ticked off
To vote
To press on
To pray
To do what hope always does:
Endure
For just one more day.
By Sharon G. Flake, 2007.
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