“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
- Emily Dickinson


Waiting for the angry sky to spread across the mountains,
Shifting its vehemence from the high plains
To the undulation of dark pines
And valleys
That meet at the wild boundary lines
Of the Dakotas.  

The distant sound of thunder shakes the ground
And does not rumble like a gentle summer storm,
But implodes within the atoms of the air
Like somewhere in the night
Exists the frontlines of a war.

It draws ever near.

And it is enough to scare this little bird away;
Yet, she sings into the dying of the day,
And bravely turns to face the
Driving wind,
Wings extended out and in
To the torrent of the rain.

She is accustomed to the pain
Of singing all alone
Abandoned in the darkness of a soul
That has almost given up.

But as each storm approaches, I am beginning to trust
That she is always there.

Her bright wings flutter in the deepest hollows of despair.
Her colors light the air between the clashing of the clouds
And when the lightening flares
I can see her
Suspended there
Still.

I reach out to grab her.
Surely, she cannot survive a storm of this magnitude,
Not this time.

But you take my hand in yours and tell me,
“She will be fine,”
And even though the sky is falling
I believe you.