Hope

Hope

It hovers in dark corners

before the lights are turned on,

     it shakes sleep from its eyes

     and drops from mushroom gills,

          it explodes in the starry heads

          of dandelions turned sages,

               it sticks to the wings of green angels

               that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye

of the many-eyed potato,

     it lives in each earthworm segment

     surviving cruelty,

          it is the motion that runs

          from the eyes to the tail of a dog,

               it is the mouth that inflates the lungs

               of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift

we cannot destroy in ourselves,

the argument that refutes death,

the genius that invents the future,

all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear

not to betray one another;

it is in this poem, trying to speak.