CATCHING HOPE

Photo of an impromptu sledding adventure with our neighbors in the backyard of the row houses where we live.

We try to recapture hope
Through the discipline of reading and prayers
Well-crafted sermons
Calendared events
To perhaps make the conditions
That might attract hope again
Like standing still enough
For a bird to fly close
If we just wait
So hope comes close
So that we might hang on
One more day together
Or another week or year

But what if hope
Is always there
Waiting to be found
Not just attracted to us
But stumbled into
Like walking around the corner
To find a morning dove or deer
Unusually close

And maybe monks and soldiers
Sailors and circus performers
Know something we forgot

Hope has to be caught
Like seeing a shooting star
Or a rainbow
Or a photograph of someone laughing
How we know they laugh
Natural and carefree

And we have to live close enough
Like neighbors
To catch it together

Like a surprise snowfall
When the neighborhood starts sledding
Just because we’re close
And not because it was on our schedules