<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">A Poem on Hope</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">For hope must not depend on feeling good</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">And there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Of the future, which surely will surprise us,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">…And hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Tell them at least what you say to yourself.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Because we have not made our lives to fit</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">The streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Then to belong to your place by your own knowledge</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Of what it is that no other place is, and by</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Your caring for it as you care for no other place, this</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Place that you belong to though it is not yours,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">For it was from the beginning and will be to the end</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">And the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">In the trees in the silence of the fisherman</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">And the heron, and the trees that keep the land</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">They stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">when they ask for your land and your work.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Answer with knowledge of the others who are here</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">And how to be here with them. By this knowledge</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Make the sense you need to make. By it stand</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">In the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Speak to your fellow humans as your place</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Before they had heard a radio. Speak</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">From the pages of books and from your own heart.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Be still and listen to the voices that belong</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">To the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">By which it speaks for itself and no other.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Freely upon it after the darkness of the nights</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">And the darkness of our ignorance and madness.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Which is the light of imagination. By it you see</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">The likeness of people in other places to yourself</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">In your place. It lights invariably the need for care</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Toward other people, other creatures, in other places</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">As you would ask them for care toward your place and you.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">No place at last is better than the world. The world</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Is no better than its places. Its places at last</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Are no better than their people while their people</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Continue in them. When the people make</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Dark the light within them, the world darkens.</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: normal; color: rgb(50, 51, 51);" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Wendell Berry</p></body></html>