O Hope! into my darkened life
Thou hast so oft’ descended;
My helpless head from failure’s blows,
Thou also hast defended;
When circumstances hard, and mean,
Which I could not control,
Did make me bow my head with shame,
Thou comforted my soul.
When stumbling blocks lay all around,
And when my steps did falter,
Then did thy sacred fires burn
Upon my soul’s high altar.
Oft’ was my very blackest night
Scarce darker than my day,
But thou dispelled those clouds of doubt,
And cheered my lonely way.
E’en when I saw my friends forsake,
And leave me for another,
Then thou, O Hope, didst cling to me
Still closer than a brother;
Thus with thee near I groped my way
Through that long, gloomy night
Till now; yes, as I speak, behold,
I see the light! the light!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 24, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
The house was built,
Brick by brick, pane by pane,
Initially withstanding winds,
The force of a hurricane.
But over time, the faults are found
As storm after storm
Assails, the craftsmanship outdated,
In need of reform.
The windows break, one by one,
Under the weight of wrongs, the structure strains,
Until one day fire catches,
And only the foundation of good intentions remains.
While easiest would be to walk,
To abandon, moving on to rebuild,
The value is seen by those who have called it
Home, desires to be fulfilled.
Remembering the mistakes,
Maintaining the hope of freedom,
Hand in hand, we work,
Entering a new season.
The work is not complete until
The walls protect all who live there,
No exceptions. Abandonment of all
Unnecessary despair.
A job led by all, not by one,
We work long days turn long nights.
The creation of our hands
Proving more than surface level acknowledgment of rights.
The past is not buried
But underlies
What we have transformed
Before our eyes.
Copyright © 2021 Hallie Knight. Used with permission of the author. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 23, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.