On Hope: A TNQ Community Poem

Night

Night has erased the trees, near and far, but a frog croaks,

Grieving.

The sullen, miserly, late-winter storm has finally blown itself out.

Under snow and the mattress of pine needles in a pallet of darkness, it is safe.

In every tear, a seed of hope silently grows.

 

In the glassy light of winter,

A town, Hope is the name, emerges in the distant mountains, offering light.

The way the light spreads oily on the candling snow,

At midnight, I tuck your name between a poem and a prayer.

A vessel for hope.

 

I learn stillness from the trees. Who stand, bud, and sway silently.

I breathe a little deeper and a little longer this time. I am alive.

An inhalation so long and so deep it seems as if time itself pauses.

These things that happened never happened at all,

these vagrant thoughts will still be ours.

 

A crow sharpens his song on the whetstone of dawn.

My vision captures the golden crest of the sun,

the quaking world opens, offering rebirth to earth, animals, humans, oceans.

Praised be the path of totality doodling across the opposite shore.

Sometimes in these mornings, I feel absolved.

 

In the winter’s chill, a lone robin sings of spring.

But the snow, the snow,

is a December child in the heart of wind.

A fresh spring breeze gusting against the tired backdrop of winter,

the trees, their branches broken by snow, bud with white blossoms.

 

The world has finally opened their eyes 

to the horrors of your daily life.

You’re no longer standing alone, fighting

for your right to exist.

A wave of voices now echoes the same cry.

 

Winter always turns to spring,

darkness has no antonym for hope.

The tentacles of grief are as long as the bonds of love,

there are no instructions in this maze of days,

hope is a four-legged animal walking on two.

 

Through the oval looking glass, I witness the majesty of the nimbus clouds,

cross-stitched globs of light splintering across the horizon.

What to do with all this beauty?

I let myself be luminous in this dark almost-solstice,

where a stranger’s kind words play on repeat in my head.

 

Can we be freer than we ever thought?

With the wink of a child’s moon,

bright stones wink from the sidewalk. I dream they are diamonds.

A clock rings, dreams shatter and emerge,

but I pull myself up and carry on.

 

Dawn

After a long winter of silence, a tree frog lifts his voice and sings,

songbirds write on the blank slate of morning,

Buds, phlox, columbine, upturned soil and bits of green,

A gentle breeze kisses our foreheads, 

The gritty inhospitable crack now harbors the mighty dandelion.

 

The sun rises behind the horizon, the shadows of despair retreat,

and there is something so magical about finding a place where you feel at peace.

Second by second the light grows rich–brighter, yet never blinding,

I now hear the birds sing louder than ever before;

hope comes with an etch, not an edge.

 

The sun rises with the tulip, again.

Shoots and showers are part of the promise of April. 

From grey snow, a daffodil, with its flawless reach,

this blade of grass, cut down, cut short, yet growing still,

we continue to grow with the persistence of weeds.

 

She strutted out her new train, peeping. Five in black, five in yellow,

conflict-free at last she entertained a reknitting of the brain.

Her ocean orbs stare into my bleeding heart,

Stirring a soup thick with regret,

She was the meringue centre bouncing in a jello mold.

 

We tilt our heads to catch the sun shafting through the tops of forest trees. 

The return of rivers to rain and of rain to rivers,

as sure as water knows its way through solid rock, hope endures in every breath,

the riotous jazz of returning blackbirds,

feel Mother Earth’s love through the soles of bare feet. 

 

Wellspring lifts her warm apricot breast 

spilling ripe nectar into an unbroken carol of dawn.

The magnolia tree in my front garden, a calligraphy of white-pink song birds,

Sunlight on my skin cannot crack the carapace that binds my soul.

My soul soars in harmony as the sun kissed my skin.

 

Hope wakes me in the morning, 

Cherry blossoms amid sirens, poems bloom in my mind

If poets are odd, may the odds be in our favour,

for loving love pleases us so, our forlonging too, may ease our lows

Despair can never share the power that flutters with hope.

 

Finding a fragment of meaning in an empty day,

Like a shard of glass in the carpet–a sudden crystalline clarity,

sharp edges slicing against emptiness, 

a refusal of completion

but an undeniable presence.

 

Reaching out 

a soft palm, fingers splayed open,

like when you feed horses apple wedges

My hope

is that outstretched hand.

 

Day

Frogsong at night above the howling wind. Birdsong in the frigid dawn.

Summer through the canopy brings days long in love.

Reminder of innocent pleasure, like laughing with a snorter,

who tips over her cusp of chortle control, 

that was then, before. 

 

Light as airmail paper, away she flew,

Always finding peace, continue the search,

even when you don’t want to admit 

that blazes correct what bears our watermarks,

don’t let being lost spoil the fun of not knowing where you are.

 

A spring of wren song, drenched in chartreuse and blue,

because the sun’s call melts April snow, cups daffodil chins: “breathe!”

I’ll join the cheerful sandbox anarchy,

This liminal space 

where even Dad’s Friday night drinking might be more friendly.

 

Here is the storm, necessary to spread the seeds

and when they buried us, we took root.

A faint sorrow rain can erase,

a tiny lion cradled by bombardment-you are born of us,

Old grievances wither at a human’s touch.

 

One by one, glittering above the Goddesses, star lights orchestrated the dance

The river and the woman walking by it

Singing

We wade through the stars, the suns at our feet,

The sun’s eclipse: a lesson for us all.

 

The shadow of the light etches the shape of a dragonfly’s wing on concrete,

Flying in the face of it all,

Hope opens the power of a universal spirit,

2023 and 2024 were amazing because of you;

Your dad. He would be so proud of how you all turned out.

 

Brazen, beautiful wind turbines, sentinels of the Rockies,

The delicate feather of hope from a phoenix,

Await the sunlight on the lake,

Even ugly flowers want to be picked.

Let laughter leak through your open windows as night.

 

Love is real, everything else changes.

Coffee is my love language and you fill my cup,

wild yeast uplift a loaf of bread,

Magic we cannot see but only taste and trust,

The way faith is called blind.

 

I’ll leave, pave my own path and fight the good fight,

knowing you’ll still be there beside me.

Learning now to trust in the next chapter of your life

Even when “Evil Never Dies.”

Isn’t tomorrow a great reason to stay for one more day?

 

Amidst the ash, a single green blade 

reached cell by cell toward the sky.

The feathers don’t let go of the bird.

My pen burrows into the page;

It’s a messy kind of brave.

 

This Poem was created by:

Al, Alister Elya, Alysa JK Loring, Ama Ita Ose, Amber, Ana Dee, Anna Barvinok, Aviva Dale Martin, Barbara Caffery, Barbara Kordas, Bernadette, Biswajit Mishra, Bobbie Jean Huff, Brenda Sciberras, C. Ray, C.L. Boll, CA, Casey Flannigan, Cindy Webb Morris, Clare Mehta, Connie Madoc, Connie Yu, C. Scott Bryant, D Lee, D S Blenkhorn, Dagne Forrest, Dandarod, Deborah B, dee Hobsbawn-Smith, Deirdre Laidlaw, Derek Webster, Diane Massam, Elana Wolff, Eleni, Elisabeth Weiss, Elsie K Neufeld, Everet Almost There, Frank Beltrano, G E Welch, Gnilffus, Guy Chambers, Heather Bonin MacIntosh, Honey Novick, Inna Rasitsan, Jane Litchfield, Janet Pollock Millar, Janine Tschuncky, Jann Everard, Jennifer Londry, John Morris, Josée Sigouin, K.G McLeod, K.L. Healey, Karen Motyka, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Kathleen Brammall, Kayla MacIntosh, Kim J, K. J. Munro, Krista Winston, Lauren Carter, Laurie Anne Fuhr, Leslie Ramslie, Lily Finch, Linda Hatfield, Liz Gauthier, LouAnn Buhrows, lucy, Maha, Margarita Van, Marianne Guimond White, Mary Barnes, Maryann Martin, Max Vandersteen, MEB, Megan C, Michael, Michael McKinnon, Michael Stringer, Michele Rule, Michelle Weglarz, MWriterly, Mysterytail, Nan Purre, Nash Lott, Natalie Morrill, Nicholas Ruddock, Nicole Nigro, NJ Drake, Olivia Vanderwal, Orianna LRJ, Oswald Graden, Pamela Dillon, Pamela Mosher, Pamela Porter, Patti Lott, Paul Vase, Puneet Dutt, Rebecca Clifford, Rebecca Wellington, redpillsigma, Ric Perron, Rosa Frank, Rose Camara, Roy Blomstrom, Ruth Kennedy, S D Chrostowska, S. Godwins, Sange73, Shauna Grace Andrews, Shayda, Sheryl Niven, Soma Datta, Stephen Markan, Suey Mardelli, there, Thyra, Ursula Trousers, Van Waffle, Virginia Boudreau, Yvonne Blomer