Hope in your pocket
poem for the equinox
On this the equinox, a poem inspired by the last line of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poignant account of an encounter at ABQ airport that ends “not everything is lost”.
The part about Hope, I scrawled on looseleaf sheets of paper:
Not everything is lost.
There is always hope under the table or in your pocket or in a small dark drawer that no one may see from faraway….
(you can listen to it whole short poem below)
Afterwards, by which I mean many years later, today, I was reflecting on the voice of hope and how sometimes/often, it’s so hard to believe it.
If you’re not used to having a hopeful voice as part of your make up, you would not believe it when you heard it - even if you’ve written a poem-like thing.
It’s a journey to convince yourself that your voice is capable of speaking with hope and that you are capable of believing hat voice.
MAY YOU BELIEVE. May we all believe.
Recently, I was with a group of folks who said yes to excavating what has kept them silent, what they want to speak. It was not easy. And I felt such hope that we were able to go there and such gratitude that we saw each other speak and listened.
May hope express itself in you and to you.
My equinox poem ends:
Hope is catching.
If you got it, sooner or later, I’ll get it too
here’s to catching hope.
saludos from Sevilla
Shebana
