What Hope Is

I started a path not known

quick to move fast

but required I go slow -

did I listen?

I held a burning flame to my lips and spoke,

“I’ll live my name,”

“I’ll be the change,”

as if, certainly,

I could pluck some hope off the feathers on my hat

and pin it to the wrinkles

on their weathered hearts.

I wanted to hook the hope I was so sure was innate.

Naive.

Until my own plate

was licked clean by tragedy and fate.

It was then when my heart learned fully

that hope is had truly

by people

who work hard to keep it.

When the path I chose became hopeless

I learned exactly what hope is.

-Brittny Charity Valdés

The way the sun meets the flower as it sinks at dusk to meet her.

That looks like the result of hope to me. - BCV