Hope is the last refuge
of the broken and bruised
the painfully confused
who feel ill-used
yet hold on to
a chance to renew
the positive that is
long overdue.

Hope is a smile
that breaks tears
causing some to fall
and others to disappear.
It is a fool’s game
of poor predictions,
bets placed from
bad positions
but still sustain
the lost
and unforgiven,
those painfully driven,
living in the dreams
of what good things
tomorrow might bring.

Hope is a trinket
saved despite the need to eat
so, that when this homeless man meets
his long lost loved
he can give that gift
to the man he misses.
It is a warm spot on
a sidewalk vent,
a hand offering two dollars,
a stranger offering conversations
to break the cold blindness
of this windy winter loneliness.

Hope is daylight
to a prisoner who
moves to make things better
in an unfair system,
an institution
that tries to turn them
into numbers,
less than human
equal to dollar signs.
It is consuming all that bull
running down that rodeo clown
goring him to the core
and making it out
of that gated door
before idiots slam you
back in again.

Hope is a good ear
and a mouth shut
someone who hears
what other people
need so badly to say.

Hope is the lessons
that I have learned and lost
found and forgot
given and taken.
Whether I was right or mistaken
fool or genius
hope is the stream that
swims between us
in shared language,
in shared body movements,
in shared history.
It is the energy
that directs us towards
better days for
all people.

Hope is good
not necessarily
making its lack evil
but it is what people
need to get by,
a reason to stay alive.

Hope is transitive,
equal to what we do
to make dreams reality.

Ultimately, hope is the promise of
compassion yet to come.