Poetry Friday ~ Hope

Welcome to Poetry Friday.  I am "embracing challenges" by participating in this weekly community of all things poetry. Please join Carol at Beyond Literacy Link for this week's poetry round-up.

I just finished reading a debut novel by Ruth Behar, Lucky Broken Girl.  Ruthie, the main character is involved in an accident and has to be in a body cast for almost an entire year. Ruthie's struggle is based on the author's own experience as a "broken" child.

After Ruthie's cast is removed, she begins physical therapy.  At the clinic she meets a soldier who has lost a leg and is learning how to walk with a prosthesis, a factory worker who has severely injured her hand, and an elderly lady who fell in the shower and broke a hip.  Ruthie's therapist, Jessica, tells her,

"Don't lose hope."  

Because Ruthie is a reader and aspiring writer, she recalls Emily Dickinson's poem "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" each time Jessica tells her this.

As she looks around the clinic at all the heartbreak and suffering, she sees hope.

I found inspiration in Ruthie's struggle and in her courage, and I find the same in Dickinson's poem.  

We must keep hope deep in our souls and listen to its song during times of brokenness and in the midst of our own personal storms.  Where there is hope, we also find promise and peace, courage and healing.

May you find some "hope" as you read Dickinson's words today.

"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 -

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 chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.