<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";" class="">A Poem on Hope</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">For hope must not depend on feeling good</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">And there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Of the future, which surely will surprise us,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">…And hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Tell them at least what you say to yourself.</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Because we have not made our lives to fit</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Then to belong to your place by your own knowledge</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Of what it is that no other place is, and by</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Your caring for it as you care for no other place, this</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Place that you belong to though it is not yours,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">For it was from the beginning and will be to the end</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">And the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">In the trees in the silence of the fisherman</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">And the heron, and the trees that keep the land</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">They stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">when they ask for your land and your work.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Answer with knowledge of the others who are here</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">And how to be here with them. By this knowledge</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Make the sense you need to make. By it stand</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">In the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Speak to your fellow humans as your place</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Before they had heard a radio. Speak</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">From the pages of books and from your own heart.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Be still and listen to the voices that belong</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">To the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">By which it speaks for itself and no other.</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Freely upon it after the darkness of the nights</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">And the darkness of our ignorance and madness.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Which is the light of imagination. By it you see</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The likeness of people in other places to yourself</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">In your place. It lights invariably the need for care</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Toward other people, other creatures, in other places</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">As you would ask them for care toward your place and you.</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">No place at last is better than the world. The world</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Is no better than its places. Its places at last</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Are no better than their people while their people</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Continue in them. When the people make</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Dark the light within them, the world darkens.</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Wendell Berry</span></p></div></body></html>