Hope

 

In the time it took to write this poem the following things occurred:

A mother cried for her son whose been missing since October,

An alcoholic relapsed after five years of being sober

A teen boy jumped down sixty feet to hit the concrete street,

A woman went hungry for a week so that her kids could eat

A man drowned attempting to save a sinking stranger’s life

A lonely old man finally fell asleep and joined his wife

A young lady caught malaria working for an NGO in Nigeria

Many people died fighting for political justice in Syria

A young boy donated his birthday money to charity

A teenage girl realized some things are more important than popularity

A baby sparked a chain reaction of explosive laughter

A wonderful couple just started their happily ever after

 

You see, the world isn’t all that bad.

There are sparkles amidst the darkness;

Diamonds deep down underground in the dark, dank dirt,

Gems and gold that glimmer in the cold, hard earth,

Specks of light lighting up existence,

Like the twinkle twinkle of little stars

Or the human stars that inspire us to shoot for their cosmological counterparts.

Those shining dots that cross the “T” and dot the “I” in the word resistance

Resisting the darkness’ consensus, undermining the shade’s supremacy.

And if darkness doesn’t even dominate at night,

Imagine the joy of seeing the sun’s first light.

Cause every night sky is followed by a bright sky,

As the dawn destroys the dictatorship of darkness.

Hold on to the hope that someday the sun will shine.

As the horizon becomes the fight’s front line

As the sun rises above, hatred is being pushed back by love

Violence is being conquered by the white dove of peace

You see, in the end, evil doesn’t stand a chance.

 

I’m not naïve,

I know our world is inhabited by hurt and pain,

But hurt and pain don’t hold the reins,

Evil won’t win this game of Life.

Struggle and Strife might struggle and strive

But they will never overcome a person fully alive.

Program hope into your hard drive,

So you know how to survive even if life takes a nose dive.

 

At times the dark night might tempt us to despair

But the light of hope helps us carry on,

So bring it with you, like your carry-on luggage.

 

Sometimes it seems like the darkness will last forever,

Like the only light is sight is ten thousand miles away,

But light can travel that far in less than a second.

Sometimes healing can happen in a heartbeat,

A broken heart made whole in a hurry.

Just have hope, and don’t worry

Cause no matter how dark your surroundings,

Light might be just around the corner.

Sometimes it seems like Evil has stacked the deck,

That no matter how fast you run, it’s still breathing down your neck

You see, Evil is a natural sprinter

Suddenly it springs into action, surprising you with its speed,

But don’t surrender; cause Evil is not a long distance runner.

Darkness has no stamina so don’t stop running.

Cause soon enough it will get too tired to keep up,

And if you endure, eventually you will leave evil in the dust,

Just keep running, cause someday soon the sunrise will send the darkness away

Don’t give up: Persevere until you see the light of day

 

And in the words of the wise Samwise Gamgee,

“It’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass.

A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”