Hope

Hope

April 2020

Casting a miniscule shadow,

hope cuts a narrow path

through purple flowers

that lean in its wake,

through green treetops that,

questioning, bend nevertheless

as it lists in the face

of the mountain curves,

bouncing back through the

lower field, under the legs

of black and brown cows,

over the white farmhouse,

and through the wire fence

lined thick with arborvitae.

Hope rides on the carpet of

morning frost and taps

at the paned window,

creeping through the sliver of light

into the dry air inside.

It hesitates, then pushes

against my ribs, aged and brittle,

but strong enough

to send hope reeling back

out of my chest, ricocheting

off the vaulted ceiling,

slithering under

cream-colored sashes

into the green landscape

of bushes and ferns in the backyard

and the golden hue of the lower field

where it dissipates into thin air

along the base of the Blue Ridge.