HOPE

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

Emily Dickinson

           Hope is the first green-gold bud of spring on winter’s leafless limbs.  To have a word for hope is a miraculous thing, for how else could we express the force that inspires us to move forward in times of despair?  Some linguists argue that without a word for an emotion, you can’t express, maybe not even feel the emotion.  I disagree, but I understand the clarity that comes with being able to say, “I hope…”

         Hope is not expectation, the latter assuming some planning and reasonable certainty.  For example, we wait to plant lettuces until the last frost has passed so we may, according to the seed package, expectabundant produce in 58 days.  Hope ,on the other hand, takes over as a word of the imagination, so we plant in April’s cool earth, regardless of knowing there could be more frosts, even snow or ice.  Nevertheless, I press the seeds, little flecks, into the cool, damp soil while I imagine June’s salad.

Because it is a word of the imagination, hope reaches for the poet’s tools – simile and metaphor. Emily Dickinson writes “Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.”  We see, in our mind’s eye, not an amorphous soul, but a small, fragile bird chirping in anticipation of attracting a mate, a bird so fragile it would be easy prey for my cat. Emily’s hope is one pounce away from extinction.   Nonetheless, her poem moves to gratitude that hope comforts without expecting anything from her.  True, it has none of the planning and preparation of expectation, but hope is not fragile.   It holds us in our own sturdy hands above the grave.

When does Dickinson hear the hopeful bird song?  She hears it in the gale or on the chillest land or the strangest sea.  We are most aware of hope when our lives face challenge.  It faces off against another strong emotion, despair.  Hope was the flag that preceded the march of youth from Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School to the steps of their nation’s capital.  Students did not march to scream their despair, like King Lear howling to the heavens. They marched to speak their young hope for a violence-free nation, and it is that hope that sings in the gale.  Hope looks forward, not backward. Barack Obama based his drive to the presidency not on a slogan to “Make America Great Again”, but on hope.  The Barack Obama “Hope” poster is an image of President Barak Obama.  The image, designed by artist Shepard Fairey, was widely described as iconic.

                It is President Obama’s version of hopethat connects with me in my seventy-fifth year.  Words shift meanings when you enter the last couple decades of your life.  My hopes are no longer so personal, though I may hope I don’t die of some long-drawn-out disease.  I do know I will die, a knowledge I could shove aside in those years when my mirror didn’t offer me wrinkled skin and thinning hair.  My hopes now are less personal and more universal. Having 75 years to look backwards, I have the courage to imagine 75 years forward in my absence.  At a recent Seattle Arts and Lectures event, the host asked guest author Barbara Kingsolver where she found hope in today’s divided world. She replied that hope is a kind of energy she chooses to renew each day.  To abandon hope, she would be abandoning her children, her grandchildren and the children of the world.  Each day, as readily as pulling on her socks, she renews the energy of hope.  I too renew hope in the storm for my grandchildren, for my planet.  I may no longer imagine the June salad on my own dinner plate, but I can hope for food on the tables of a world where climate change has been acknowledged and ameliorated, where peoples around the world share the bounty of what each contributes.

April is almost here.  I drive through the Suquamish Reservation to Hood Canal.  The highway dips between stands of evergreens spaced by deciduous trees now wearing a yellow green hue, those fist buds on spare limbs, limbs that last week were winter stripped. The windshield wipers click rhythmically to clear steady rain.  Like a chant, I hear the punctuated consonance of hope, hope, hope.