I think about . . . hope . . . pretty much all the time. I used to write about looking-for-hope a lot more than I have been lately, but the concept is still very much in the front of my mind. (I’ve kind of wrapped my search-for-hope stories into my Friday Sanctuary posts, so it’s really still a part of what I write about. Just less . . . direct.) I actually keep a digital file where I save “hope resources” for myself . . . poems and quotes and passages and excerpts and that kind of thing . . . stuff I turn to when I’m having a hard time with the whole concept of hope and need some gentle nudges and reminders.

Like, well. Lately.

One thing I like to read when I need a hope-reminder is the commencement speech Barbara Kingsolver gave way back in 2008 at Duke. (You can find an excerpt of her address here if you’re interested in reading it yourself.) She ended her remarks with a poem called Hope: An Owner’s Manual, which is the poem I’m sharing with you today. You might notice that the name of the poem was changed to How to Be Hopeful when it was published in Kingsolver’s poetry collection How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) in 2021, but the poem is the same poem. I think it’s a good one . . . and worth reading whenever I need one of those nudges toward being hopeful again. So I’m gathering it up for us today.

How to Be Hopeful
Barbara Kingsolver

Look, you might as well know,
this device is going to take endless repair:
rubber cement, rubber bands, tapioca,
the square of the hypotenuse,
nineteenth-century novels, sunrise-
any of these could be useful. Also feathers.
The ignition is tricky. Sometimes
you have to stand on an incline
where things look possible. Or a line
you drew yourself. Or the grocery line,
making faces at a toddler, secretly,
over his mother’s shoulder.
You may have to pop the clutch
and run past the evidence. Past everyone
who is praying for you. Passing
all previous records is ok, or passing
strange. Just not passing it up.
Or park it and fly by the seat of your pants.
With nothing in the bank, you will
still want to take the express. Tiptoe
past the dogs of the apocalypse
asleep in the shade of your future.
Pay at the window. You’ll be surprised:
you can pass off hope like a bad check.
You still have time, that’s the thing.
To make it good.

As mentioned previously, today’s poem comes from Barbara Kingsolver. You can read more on her website, here. The poem is included in Kingsolver’s poetry collection How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons), published by Harper Collins in 2021.

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You can find A Gathering of Poetry every month . . . on the third Thursday.
Share some.
Read some.
Gather up some poetry!

(Bonny is hosting a special link-up for A Gathering of Poetry. Be sure to check it out.)