Hope is the thing with feathers.

Last week, I wrote about grief. But it was also about hope, right? It contained the first of two poems centered around my favorite: Hope is the Thing with Feathers. When I read this poem, 20-ish years ago, I immediately memorized it. I’ve whispered it too myself many times. Written it out for extra credit on a philosophy exam. Believed in it more than what’s been preached to (or at) me about hope.

Maybe because I discovered it as a child, barely in middle school, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this poem has inspired every single poem I have written since. Case in point:

A week before I wrote the grief poem, I wrote another poem—which shapeshifted to hold all the words on hope I’ve shared here. The prompt for it wasn’t about hope, though; it was:

Write a poem about a bird.

Emily’s poem instantly came to mind, because that’s the comparison she makes of hope. “Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul…”

So I borrowed her first line and wrote about my own thing with feathers:

It was the word that got me through a season of depression. The word that felt like Jesus to me. The word that most epitomized “salvation” for me when the church’s definitions didn’t fit.

Hope has always been my word. And as she (hope) has shown up so often this week—even in the midst of grief—she whispers:

Isn’t that beautiful?

I wonder:

What are the themes (or words) that tether you? (Please share in the comments!)1

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I didn’t know I’d need her so acutely. I think I had forgotten her—not just the word but the feeling, the belief, the ability to actively hold it.

Even as she was bashed, again and again, by doctors refusing to follow her lead and help find relief.

Even as she’s been flitting in and out of my view this year, as doctors are listening, caring, and believing me & my symptoms (I’ll share more soon).

She’s still been there. On the horizon. In the dark. Perched in the center of me.

I promised this in my last post, and I’ll promise it again: she’s still there for you, too.

If you need help believing that, perhaps you might borrow some of the belief I’m wrestling with and fighting for, written out in these posts:

The horizon ahead.

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Jun 4

My easily-carsick self couldn’t stare for long, but it was long enough for a whisper to drop into my ears, almost startling me: “Everything ahead looks like a mirage. But that doesn’t mean it is… it’s a trick of the light.”

When hope becomes a shapeshifter.

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May 28

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to tell you that the hopes I quietly carried until two weeks ago, when I unabashedly wrote about them—didn’t pan out the way I wanted.