30 Hope poems

when I beheld a fire win out against a hemisphere of shadows. —Inferno, Dante (tr. by Allen Mandelbaum) If I could hold a fire against a hemisphere of shadows, hold it close, not so that damage finds my hands, but so fire scatters galvanizing strands, my pupils responsive to the flames’ unbridled tutelage as they tell me nothing but these little jumps out of your definitions, small or large or leaping, sinking, slumped

And if sun comes How shall we greet him? Shall we not dread him, Shall we not fear him After so lengthy a Session with shade? Though we have wept for him, Though we have prayed All through the night-years— What if we wake one shimmering morning to Hear the fierce hammering Of his firm knuckles Hard on the door? Shall we not shudder?— Shall we not flee Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter Of the familiar Propitious haze? Sweet is it, sweet is it To sleep in the coolness Of snug unawareness. The dark hangs heavily Over the eyes.

When despair— you who enjoyed great triumphs and walked with confidence and the memory of many gifts of delirium and dawns and unexpected turns— when despair wants you in its grip, and threatens you from some unfathomable depth with destruction and the guttering out of your flame: then think of the unsatisfied ones, with their migraine-prone temples and introverted dispositions, loyal to a few memories that held out little hope, who still bought flowers, and with a smile of not much luminosity confided secret desires to their small-scale heavens that were soon to be extinguished.

And if sun comes How shall we greet him? —Gwen Brooks The sun came, Miss Brooks,— After all the night years. He came spitting fire from his lips. And we flipped—We goofed the whole thing. It looks like our ears were not equipped For the fierce hammering. And now the Sun has gone, has bled red, Weeping behind the hills. Again the night shadows form. But beneath the placid face a storm rages. The rays of Red have pierced the deep, have struck The core. We cannot sleep. The shadows sing: Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm. The darkness ain't like before. The Sun came, Miss Brooks. And we goofed the whole thing. I think. (Though ain't no vision visited my cell.)

Has the bright sun set, Has the gale grown stronger? Still we’ll not grieve yet: We will sing a while longer! Has our youth been met By Time the wronger? Let us not grieve yet, Let us sing a while longer! Is the world beset, Do the sorrows throng her? Let us not grieve yet: Let us sing a while longer!

If the angle of an eye is all, the slant of hope, the slant of dreaming, according to each life, what is the light of this city, light of Lady Liberty, possessor of the most famous armpit in the world, light of the lovers on Chinese soap operas, throwing BBQ’d ducks at each other with that live-it-up-while-you’re-young, Woo Me kind of love, light of the old men sitting on crates outside geegaw shops selling dried seahorses & plastic Temples of Heaven, light of the Ying ‘n’ Yang Junk Palace, light of the Golden Phoenix Hair Salon, light of Wig-o-ramas, light of the suntanners in Central Park turning over like rotisserie chickens sizzling on a spit, light of the Pluck U & Gone with the Wings fried-chicken shops, the parking-meter-leaners, the Glamazons, the oglers wearing fern-wilting quantities of cologne, strutting, trash-talking, glorious: the immigrants, the refugees, the peddlars, stockbrokers and janitors, stenographers and cooks, all of us making and unmaking ourselves, hurrying forwards, toward who we’ll become, one way only, one life only: free in time but not from it, here in the city the living make together, and make and unmake over and over Quick, quick, ask heaven of it, of every mortal relation, feeling that is fleeing, for what would the heart be without a heaven to set it on? I can’t help thinking no word will ever be as full of life as this world, I can’t help thinking of thanks.

photo of United States from outer space in trash green fire held to everything as everyone whirls into abs- tr- action a moment with the crystal and the weight of the house is released we hold fast we hold one another we hold to the vigor of the street pain of picked flower our frame reckless but never monochrome everything the speed and tension of eloping saunter past barricades waking not sleeping to dream

Like hope it springs eternal, existing in discrete but spherical units, a mist of total but encapsulated salvational events. If any two of these bubbles bang against each other no walls collapse or double to a larger chamber unlike the halls of soap.

Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.

Oh! dost thou flatter falsely, Hope? The day hath scarcely passed that saw thy birth, Yet thy white wings are plumed to all their scope, And hour by hour thine eyes have gathered light, And grown so large and bright, That my whole future life unfolds what seems, Beneath their gentle beams, A path that leads athwart some guiltless earth, To which a star is dropping from the night! Not many moons ago, But when these leafless beds were all aglow With summer’s dearest treasures, I Was reading in this lonely garden-nook; A July noon was cloudless in the sky, And soon I put my shallow studies by; Then sick at heart, and angered by the book, Which, in good sooth, was but the long-drawn sigh Of some one who had quarreled with his kind, Vexed at the very proofs which I had sought, And all annoyed while all alert to find A plausible likeness of my own dark thought, I cast me down beneath yon oak’s wide boughs, And, shielding with both hands my throbbing brows, Watched lazily the shadows of my brain. The feeble tide of peevishness went down, And left a flat dull waste of dreary pain Which seemed to clog the blood in every vein; The world, of course, put on its darkest frown— In all its realms I saw no mortal crown Which did not wound or crush some restless head; And hope, and will, and motive, all were dead. So, passive as a stone, I felt too low To claim a kindred with the humblest flower; Even that would bare its bosom to a shower, While I henceforth would take no pains to live, Nor place myself where I might feel or give A single impulse whence a wish could grow. There was a tulip scarce a gossamer’s throw Beyond that platanus. A little child, Most dear to me, looked through the fence and smiled A hint that I should pluck it for her sake. Ah, me! I trust I was not well awake— The voice was very sweet, Yet a faint languor kept me in my seat. I saw a pouted lip, a toss, and heard Some low expostulating tones, but stirred Not even a leaf’s length, till the pretty fay, Wondering, and half abashed at the wild feat, Climbed the low pales, and laughed my gloom away. And here again, but led by other powers, A morning and a golden afternoon, These happy stars, and yonder setting moon, Have seen me speed, unreckoned and untasked, A round of precious hours. Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked, And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers, To justify a life of sensuous rest, A question dear as home or heaven was asked, And without language answered. I was blest! Blest with those nameless boons too sweet to trust Unto the telltale confidence of song. Love to his own glad self is sometimes coy, And even thus much doth seem to do him wrong; While in the fears which chasten mortal joy, Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech too free, With the cold touch of hard reality, Should turn its priceless jewels into dust. Since that long kiss which closed the morning’s talk, I have not strayed beyond this garden walk. As yet a vague delight is all I know, A sense of joy so wild ’t is almost pain, And like a trouble drives me to and fro, And will not pause to count its own sweet gain. I am so happy! that is all my thought! To-morrow I will turn it round and round, And seek to know its limits and its ground. To-morrow I will task my heart to learn The duties which shall spring from such a seed, And where it must be sown, and how be wrought. But oh! this reckless bliss is bliss indeed! And for one day I choose to seal the urn Wherein is shrined Love’s missal and his creed. Meantime I give my fancy all it craves; Like him who found the West when first he caught The light that glittered from the world he sought, And furled his sails till Dawn should show the land; While in glad dreams he saw the ambient waves Go rippling brightly up a golden strand. Hath there not been a softer breath at play In the long woodland aisles than often sweeps At this rough season through their solemn deeps— A gentle Ariel sent by gentle May, Who knew it was the morn On which a hope was born, To greet the flower ere it was fully blown, And nurse it as some lily of her own? And wherefore, save to grace a happy day, Did the whole West at blushing sunset glow With clouds that, floating up in bridal snow, Passed with the festal eve, rose-crowned, away! And now, if I may trust my straining sight, The heavens appear with added stars to-night, And deeper depths, and more celestial height, Than hath been reached except in dreams or death. Hush, sweetest South! I love thy delicate breath; But hush! methought I felt an angel’s kiss! Oh! all that lives is happy in my bliss. That lonely fir, which always seems As though it locked dark secrets in itself, Hideth a gentle elf, Whose wand shall send me soon a frolic troop Of rainbow visions, and of moonlit dreams. Can joy be weary, that my eyelids droop? To-night I shall not seek my curtained nest, But even here find rest. Who whispered then? And what are they that peep Betwixt the foliage in the tree-top there? Come, Fairy Shadows! for the morn is near, When to your sombre pine ye all must creep; Come, ye wild pilots of the darkness, ere My spirit sinks into the gulf of Sleep; Even now it circles round and round the deep— Appear! Appear!