Deja Vu

This poem is my favorite and it's been perched in my mind since I was 16, learning it as part of an english class presentation. The poem has appeared more than a few times in full or in reference on this blog. It's been interpreted in the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

Hope is the Thing With Feathers, Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

There was a time when I recalled this poem with the bitterest of feelings. Those who know me best know the time I'm talking about. I looked to this poem with strongest of angry feelings and I remember thinking, and feeling, that I'd been betrayed. I was angry. Too angry.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

That little bird. That image of Hope. I think that bird is watching over each and everyone of us. Even if when we can't see hope, we can't feel hope, we can't believe in hope, hope is still there, watching over us. That bird is there through thick and thin and it's up to each of us to embrace the sweet chirping or listen to the howl of the wind.

I've heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

This last paragraph I remember not really understanding, or should I say grasping, when I first read it out loud as a 16 year old.

But I get it now. Hell, for that matter, I got it a few years ago. And it's only in getting the last paragraph you can really understand what hope is all about. Hope is not something to be internalized with an image of entitlement. It's vital not to take for granted how important of an emotion it is and how much sweeter it is when it's shared with others.

Without hope, what is there really?

(this poem is with me the last few weeks as an image in my mind for reasons I cannot yet share. But in time I will.)