“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I’ve heard it in the hilliest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Hope is Our Bird

Hope is so generous that it gives and gives and never stops, but never asks for anything in return from us and never wants us to do anything about it, and even when we feel it has left us, it stays there for us to keep us warm and protected. Oh yes! Hope is a bird, but how can we make it fly, have wings and its chirping fills the whole wide sky?

Hope is a bird, a creature that needs to be fed. We can count on it when we need it the most, but we cannot rely on it much if we starve it to death. We cannot blame it for not lifting us up when our hands are so clutched down to earth. And how can we fly with it if we refuse to wear its wings? Hope is what we need in a world full of egos and vanities that fog out the sun and leave us in complete darkness where we left no door ajar to escape and no window open so that a speck of light might enter and help us see our way around. Then what we do is blame hope for not being there for us at the time of need; when it is we who killed it or poisoned it into this deep sleep.
Hope is all that we need now, but come let’s feed this beautiful bird inside and grow its wings so it may grow our own and only then can we fly together. When was the last time we believed? In anything we want to believe; when was the last time? Hope is like anything that exists, yet cannot be seen; it needs to be believed in to be able to survive. It takes its strength from our thoughts and hearts. That’s when all people hope for something together, hope becomes like a giant phoenix that returns from the dead and shoots down its enemies with fire, but my friends watch out for the Phoenix fire; if not aimed well, it can burn us along with our enemies, especially when these enemies are our brothers; especially if we hate our sisters and curse our parents and hope they all disappear so that we stay as the only survivors. Don’t count on that too much for the Phoenix of hope you have conjured has grown too strong and fierce to control and it is already burning all that’s dear to you and me our country.

Do you believe we have all that strength to hope? Then let us hope that together we can survive, together we can live in peace, together we can reconcile at last and forget what makes us different from each other and remember the too many human similarities between us; together we can start building our countries back together so that our children in the future can stand tall and be proud of their ancestors who will have built them something worthy of being remembered for; together we can believe that we can, and stop this madness of the words ‘we cannot;’ together we can start anything at the same power that we can stop; together we can dream and soon make this dream a world we live in; together we can live and forget who we are and where we come from. We all came from a woman’s womb and we all are going to be buried in a tight spot, but between these two milestones, we have a lot of differences to share and celebrate our differences together as one; together we can grow this bird inside our hearts and make it so strong not to burn us one day, but to watch over us and protect us. Together we can hope and really make hope a thing of feathers like what Emily said in her poem.