The Return

I hope.

I got so out of the habit of writing that it's tough to know what to write so I'll just go for it.

Today I am grateful for hope.

We had a discussion on hope today in a spiritual discussion group that I'm part of and it was really difficult to pin down what exactly hope is.  The difficulty was in separating it from faith.  We came to the consensus that hope is almost pre-faith. The thing that gets you through the dark when you have can't actually believe that all will be well, but really want it to.

By faith I don't mean in a specific deity or external being but more in yourself and the goodness of mankind.


        Dreams

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.  Langston Hughes

On My First Son

On My First Sonby Ben Jonson


Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy ;
    My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
    Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
    Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
    And if no other misery, yet age!
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, Here doth lie
    Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such
    As what he loves may never like too much.

For Griff

It's almost like you never were
and all a big bad dream
If only I could waken up
but then you'd not have been.

I couldn't wish your life away
however short it was
and that's the trap I'm living in
because there is such hurt

The hurt and pain won't go away
I don't want them to
When the story's said and done
It's all I have of you

My heart is still in tiny bits
it's often all I feel
I say again, again again
How can this be real?