Hello there - it’s been a minute. The world got to be too much and I only had the time and energy for maintaining one platform and this one suffered — probably still don’t have a whole lot of energy, but I wanted to compile a letter on having and holding out hope - hope that the world will return to normal, but what is normal anymore? Even a post-pandemic-mostly-vaccinated world (and not just the first world) won’t be a utopia and it will still be riddled with violence and hate and discrimination, but one can hope. Read on, and share your thoughts.
All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hands to left or right,
And emptiness above –
Know that you aren’t alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.— Vikram Seth
But there's only one thing that lasts forever, one flesh and one hope to which we belong. The heavy hand of time will even frost the skies. Bright within the unconsuming fire, our love, alive.
— LeighAnna Schesser, from Til Death, Struck Dumb with Singing
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.— Czesław Miłosz, Hope
You must realize that. something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet
I’m not feeling strong yet, but I am taking
good care of myself. The weather is perfect.
I read and walk all day and then walk to the sea.
I expect to swim soon. For now I am content.
I am not sure what I hope for. I feel I am
doing my best. It reminds me of when I was
sixteen dreaming of Lorca, the gentle trees outside
and the creek. Perhaps poetry replaces something
in me that others receive more naturally.
Perhaps my happiness proves a weakness in my life.
Even my failures in poetry please me.
Time is very different here. It is very good
to be away from public ambition.
I sweep and wash, cook and shop.
Sometimes I go into town in the evening
and have pastry with custard. Sometimes I sit
at a table by the harbor and drink half a beer.— Linda Gregg, The Letter
It ends or it doesn't.
That’s what you say. That’s
how you get through it.
The tunnel, the night,
the pain, the love.
It ends or it doesn't.
If the sun never comes up,
you find a way to live
without it.
If they don’t come back,
you sleep in the middle of the bed,
learn how to make enough coffee
for yourself alone.
Adapt. Adjust.
It ends or it doesn't.
It ends or it doesn't.
We do not perish.— Caitlyn Siehl
“You have survived so much that no one remembers. And you still spread warm rain on all your overgrown lots. And you still get dressed in the morning. You still open wide for the sun.”
— Jacqui Germain, from When the Ghosts Come Ashore
Sometimes, when I'm careless, I think survival is easy: you just keep moving forward with what you have, or what's left of what you were given, until something changes—or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and you find that—yes—your name is still attached to a living being.
— Ocean Vuong, from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Essentials -
In Dark Times, I Sought Out the Turmoil of Caravaggio’s Paintings