What does hope look like?

Hope is wearing a rib knit sweater
And hiding under my blanket
I come home
Never looking for it
But find it in my bed
Unfurling happiness for me
And feasting on the sadness
I never choose to leave behind.

Hope is the man on horseback
Overriding the shadows of his past
Galloping through the alleys
With light rays in his arms.

Hope is a voice
Telling me to walk
Between puddles and uninvited splashes
It is the tiny leaf
Chained to the tree
But still quivering
On the wind’s touch.

Hope is the man
Pinioned to ground
For plucking stars from the firmament
And placing them on his lips
To taste them.

Hope is poetry
Stripped open by a falchion sword
Held in my lovers hand
And tormented until scratches and bruises
Adorn it like leaves on a tree.

Hope is your words
Walking the precincts of the abbey Church
And churning it’s mob
With issues of faith.

Hope is the stars in the night sky
The wildflower of the night,
Raindrop on oleander petals,
Inflorescent spark
That adorns
The stellar landscape,
Cosmic link
In the universal daisy chain,
Incandescent bud
That blossoms beyond the stratosphere,
They bloom- then fall
And when they fade,
There will always be
Another star,
Another flower,
To take their place.