What’s the point in having hope?
Haven’t you seen the world?
Bombs are booming.
Towers are toppling.
Tyrants are terrorizing.
Evil is emerging.
What’s the point in having hope?
Look around you?
Forests are few.
Endangered becomes extinct.
Erratic lights erase luminous stars.
Pollution populates ‘round the poplar tree.
What’s the point in having hope?
I’ll tell you why.
Because it is all I have.
While balding men, in closed rooms, debate how to keep the people under their thumb, Hope is there, holding my hand to guide me.
As my rights are stripped down to my basic privilege to exist, and primeval expectations load onto my back, Hope brushes them away, for temporary relief, and wraps her arm around my shoulders.
As I hide under heavy blankets at night, crying in fear of what the future will bring, Hope crawls in behind me and holds me close; I am a little spoon in her gentle, soothing embrace.
Hope is never lost. We just don’t look down enough to see her tiny frame looking up at us. She hops around us, trying to get our attention, but we rarely cast our eyes to her.
We look up, where the sky is empty or framed by skyscrapers. The claustrophobic dome seems as if it will crush us if we look too long. What goes up, however, must come down. Thus, new fears are born.
We look forward—to the horizon line. Where unknown futures, opportunities, and fears await, causing our anxious selves to tremble. In all that time, we never looked down. Why would we? Where is the pride in that? The honor? The dignity?
Oh, how wrong you are. When we look down, we see we are grounded. We are reminded of where we are and dismissed any feelings of being lost. We are brought back to earth with a new sense of security. And who is down there waiting? Little Hope, waiting in her box for us. The box is scratched and beaten, but it is still waiting. She sits there, with her arms reaching up to us, ready for an adventure. I will take her by the hand, and we will walk through golden fields and concrete jungles. Because there is a whole, new world out there to explore.
What’s the point in having Hope?
I’ll tell you why.
Because it’s the one thing you can’t take from me.
