Robert Lee Brewer of the Writer’s Digest’s Poetic Asides has begun a “count down” to his annual April Poem-a-Day challenge this year.
My plan, if I can keep up with it, is to daily provide a link to Robert’s prompts here at Bloomings. If you care to share your P.A.-prompted poems daily here, you are more than welcome to do so. We can interact and encourage one another easily here.
Here is the link to today’s prompt, “Write a hope poem”: Poetic Asides April PAD Countdown: T-minus 2
Connect, keep healthy, and poem on!
POETIC BLOOMINGS 
A NEW LYRIC FOR AN OLD TUNE
If good King Wenceslas were here
in these days of fearing,
he probably would counsel cheer,
for brighter times are nearing:
“Mark ye well, this all will end,
despite your fears so cruel;
to each other be a friend,
using hope as fuel.”
Good to see you, Bill! “Counsel cheer” is such a great wording, and you’ve done just that with your poem.
Good advice from King Wenceslas via you, William
Faith/Hope Chain
Faith named her daughter Hope.
Faith’s Facebook posts have lately been all hope.
Hope is bouncing off the walls.
Hope fills the bathtub and refrigerator.
Refrigerator hope, packaged to stay fresh.
Refrigerator hope: Delivered to your door.
Door by door the masked driver delivers.
Door after door opens to the sun.
Sun—all light— seems strangely alien.
Sun, whose healing properties we take on faith.
Oh, to get inside your brain to see the workings therein! Love it, Barbara!
It’s a weird place, Marie Elena. But in fact one of my stepkids has a daughter named Hope (though her mother’s not Faith, but Leslie, and it is Leslie who has been posting poems of hope on Facebook all month.) I can’t remember the name for that form, two lines end with the same word, and the last word of the second is the beginning of the next pair. It gives a nice frame, but going on too long can get sticky.
“but going on too long can get sticky”
Yep. I run out of working ideas too quickly to accommodate something like this.
Like the form and your poem.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu
Hope
We have little need of hope
in the good times and even
besmirch its honor at those
times by hoping for more
good times, good things, good feelings…
But let the hard times roll
in like a plague of locust
eating away our happiness
then we call on hope
good times, good things, good feelings…
Sometimes, I think we don’t
know what hope really is
it is tied too much to comfort
of the physical and not spiritual
good times, good things, good feelings…
Hope is not a dream, a wish, a longing
belonging to the ephemeral things,
but of the, and in the eternal things
Next to last line should be: “belonging only to the ephemeral things”
Hear, hear. Wisdom in your words!
Thank you, Marie
Pingback: Hope – Poetry by Debi Swim
H
O
P
E
Promise
There is this book which has been
following me around for weeks now.
Actually, not following so much as
accompanying, fitting nicely in
my hand, or atop my desk,
in the room I share with a cat.
The book is important.
That’s why I bought it.
It is about hope,
and also about the mind,
about laughing at,
but not making an enemy
of the latter.
I say that’s what it is about,
but I don’t know for sure,
only what the dust jacket blurb says.
I can’t seem to get by the introduction,
not in my room, nor outside,
heck, not even at the library,
since it’s closed for the duration.
My core seems obdurate in
its resistance to change, or growth.
I will say that, pages unread,
that book seems still to be
having an impact.
I think about hope all the time.
A good thing, too, since
I have forever friends who
will not see year’s end,
In the greater scheme of things,
I’m a pretty small fish in
a very big pond, or, at most,
like one of those salmon,
returning to their place of creation,
encountering resistance at every turn.
I hope this hope thing is
not overrated. The book is heavy,
the thoughts too, sometimes.
I hope this hope thing is
not overrated. The book is heavy,
the thoughts too, sometimes…………. Me, too. But still we hope
I used the term “wisdom” for Debi’s poem, and I will use it again, here. Such wisdom in your words. Such satisfaction.
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.” From the hymn The Heavenly Vision, by Helen Howarth Lemmel
HOPE, FULFILLED (may be sung)
Dear writer, your hymn born of life’s woes
through blindness and heartache, composed,
gives name to our risen Messiah,
His purpose on earth to disclose.
Turn our eyes to You, Jesus –
Redeemer, Messiah, and Friend.
Give us ears to hear; give us sight to see
that through You, we’re no longer condemned.
Redemption is ours in Christ Jesus,
His death restored life to our soul.
This Sinless One bore our transgressions,
And these “not in part, but the whole.”
Turn our eyes to You, Jesus –
Redeemer, Messiah, and Friend.
Give us ears to hear; give us sight to see
that through You, we’re no longer condemned.
No need to be summoning hope now.
No need to have courage instilled.
No need for our guilt to oppress us,
for Christ is our promise, fulfilled.
Turn our eyes to You, Jesus –
Redeemer, Messiah, and Friend.
Give us ears to hear; give us sight to see
that through You, we’re no longer condemned.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
Beautiful song Marie.
Thank you.
Waiting for Germination
Those seeds drilled their root into moistness,
into the dark warmth of the earth, and
as those gloomy days passed along,
as the sun passed days to the moon,
and daffodils had the world to themselves,
I lived in hope.
Of nature.
Of life
Of germination.
We live for the end of one season to next,
knowing every song has its final note.
And when green seemed so uncertain,
three seeds revealed their leaves like
surfacing fish that gasp for air.
The Amarillo chilli seeds
were growing. Delicate,
and green,
and cheering for light.
Misk, you beautiful talented soul, you! Love this!
“and daffodils had the world to themselves” makes me smile.
And yes, cheering for the light with you!
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