HOPE ever flowing freely from the heart/well of LOVE

There is a theme that is is so very strong in my life right now:  HOPE.  I came across a fragment of poem I had copied on a sticky note-Emily Dickinson's poem 'Hope is a thing with feathers' .  I had copied it months ago when I borrowed a colleague's office to see a client suffering with loss and grief.  There was the poem, just in time for what my client needed.  I brought it home to my own cluttered desk where it promptly disappeared, until yesterday it showed up,again.  Hope came up in a meeting on Friday, and in the readings from today's church service. I heard the word HOPE in so many venues over the last few days, I couldn't NOT notice. Then, when I opened my emails this morning, my friend Catharine had this in her morning blog: I share it with her permission. She in turn was inspired by a friend's blog, Cheap, Crappy Hope (Part 1 of 3). drkellyflanagan.com. 

allwillbewellperiod.blogspot.com

HOPE

Emily said it well

In three stanzas.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

It never stops singing.

Pretty much our hopes are small,

Always too small,

Even when we*ve glimpsed

Bigger things:

Bald eagles

Soaring in circles

High over Lake Superior;

Those same majestic birds

Roosting in trees

Along the Mississippi,

The river everyone knows and names,

Except perhaps the Nile

Or the Amazon.

We think these

May be the biggest hopes possible.

They are visible

Known

Heard

Soaring

Roosting in trees.

These are the hopes

We have seen

These are the hopes

We have heard

Those things with feathers

Singing

Soaring

Roosting in trees.

Even these feathered hopes

Thank you, Emily,

Are just

The bare beginning.

Here is Emily Dickensen's poem

"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.

 www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/poetry.../hop_is_the_thi_wit_fea/

I am grateful for this 'thing' call "hope". I am glad it is singing so loudly just now!