Poems of Doubtful Hope

  It had been almost six months since he jumped. No one had known how he felt. She’d read the note he put under a brick on the roof. He’d talked about his reasons and how sorry he was, but she didn’t find any answers there.   It had been a big funeral. Hundreds of mourners came offering condolences, talking about how sorry they were and how they wished they’d known something was wrong. She smiled weakly and nodded, letting their words wash over her. She felt like she was the one who had died, not him.   Standing here, looking at his headstone, his absence from her life was almost tangible: a malevolent gargoyle perched upon her shoulder, claws digging deep.   A life reduced to a name, two dates, and an epitaph: “May He Know Peace.” She flung the flowers she’d brought down in the dirt and sank to her knees, sobbing and screaming. When the tears stopped, she spoke, softly, as if she was afraid speaking the words out loud would make them too real: “I wish yo...

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops—at all, But I worry that, perhaps, I've lost the ears to hear, Because my tuneless humming Has turned to anxious fear. Hope may spring eternal, But perhaps the well runs dry When you lose the will to hope for more Than barely getting by. I've traded hope for certainty In a life that's mostly fine: I've clipped my wings, scorned finer things, And swallowed my repine. But I'm longing for something better Like the passions I've forced myself to deny, And ever since I clipped my wings I've been dreaming about the sky. If the song has never stopped But you can't hear it ringing, Instead of waiting for a musician You should just start singing.

The great paradox of life Lies in the fact that all of us live our lives As though we were absolutely free, Unaware of all the ways in which the world Limits those freedoms at every step. The seeds are planted, Our plans are made, But no one truly knows What crops life will yield in its time.   “Love fate.” Embrace the obstacles that present themselves And allow the challenges of life To become the way to learn how to move forward. None of us know what will happen, And we should do our best to influence the world Towards virtue and righteousness, But there is no amount of rage or regret That can make the past different than it was.   We are where we are, And there are no guarantees for where we will go; All we can do with the day we are given Is to embrace what is Then decide what we will try to make happen next. If what happens is something else, Nothing is to be gained from hating what is: Instead, we learn what can be le...

“Remember to live.” Celebrate the days you are given, And rejoice in the simple pleasures of the here and now. Never become so obsessed with doing That you forget to simply be.   Love the things you love Without fear of the shame lesser people might try to inflict To try and distract themselves from their own pain by wounding you: In the blink of an eye, you’ll both be gone, But only one of you will be satisfied.   While we shouldn’t wallow in pleasure, Neither should we believe that the joys of this world are sinful Or somehow not meant for those who seek a virtuous path. For who can be said to have truly lived But never laughed or loved?

Death is not the antithesis to life— Death is the result. We spend so much time running From the place we are all destined to reach, Like runners on a backwards treadmill Who foolishly believe the machine may fail before we do.   When death is remembered it still stings, But not the sting of some sad unexpected tragedy: The sting is a reminder of the pain of an ending, But it simply leads to another beginning. Who knows what dreams may come in that sleep of death? But come they must, and so fear accomplishes nothing.   “Remember death.” Remember that each day is a gift, Their breadth and depth unknown until they end. Mourn and remember the love you have lost: But remember it is as natural as the tides that ebb and flow, And the breaths that come in inexorably come back out.