This is a Path Without Hope

This is a path without hope.
We jump and we hop
From stone to stone,
We shake and we sway
Wishing not to fall today,
Never knowing if the next hop
is right or safe
or leads to a drop.

This is a path without rest.
If we knew how – we would do our best,
But even they who are doing their best
Don’t know it and struggle with all the rest.

O how I wish I could stop right here –
Sit down on this boulder and die of fear!
Tell every cell that wants to burst
To do it now and scream its worst.

And maybe in a deluge of sound
I will be lost and newly found
And rise again to merrily hop
On a path with hope.

But maybe in the Great Before
I’ve done just that three score and more
And woke up here with a heaving chest
And here is best.
And every time I failed and crashed
Hope built steadily in my flesh
And now no matter how possessed
I cannot rest.

Maybe to hope is not to feel
But just to walk and never be still –
Just to want to write some more
And not keep score.

Maybe to hope is just to say
I see no tomorrow but today
I drink this tea, I eat this bread,
My heart is glad.

When I was a child I met despair
And knew it might be mine to bear
And a vow rose forth from me like a swell
To bear it well.

And though I knew not what I said
I wake and quake and go to bed
And write these lines and laugh and weep
This vow to keep.

And maybe to hope is to keep this vow
To carry despair both deep and low
To shield all those I want to keep –
To let it sleep.

To do this well is to be blessed
But every cell in me protests
And boils my graceless human blood
And wants a flood –

A flood that washes clean the slates
Forgive me – master of maps and fates!
A flood to toss me like a toy
To a path with joy!

Copyright © 2023 Anna Braverman