<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Gates of Hope</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not the prudent gates of Optimism,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Which are somewhat narrower.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Which creak on shrill and angry hinges</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But a different, sometimes lonely place,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The place of truth-telling,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">About your own soul first of all and its condition.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The place of resistance and defiance,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The piece of ground from which you see the world</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Both as it is and as it could be</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As it will be;</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But the joy of the struggle.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And we stand there, beckoning and calling,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Telling people what we are seeing</span></p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Asking people what they see.</span></div><div><br></div><div> - Victoria Safford <br><br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."<div> - Wendell Berry</div></div><br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Sent from the imaginal realm.</div></div></body></html>