A Definition-Poem by Melissa Weaver

A Definition

by Melissa Weaver

Hope is not something seen skin-deep.

It’s not happiness.  It’s not ignorance.  It’s not naïve.

Hope is not

some girl skipping through a daisy field.  Daisies die, you see.

It’s an eyes-open concept.

Hope sees,

opens eyes to

the death

the ashes

it’s surrounded by.

It stumbles through the blazing, thirsty desert

knowing the taste of water will come soon

It sees the moon in the night,

waits for the drip from the midnight faucet,

the tap that means freedom.

Hope is not

feeling,

but it’s not

just knowing either.

Hope is a God.

A great, holy, awe-inspiring God.

But Hope is also

an odd, stooped figure with a washrag

scrubbing some guy’s feet.

It is both a death and a life.

It is The Way.

It is a splintery, blood-stained, cracked cross.

It is a broken-open, light-bursting, night-smashing,

empty tomb.

It’s an angel explaining

why a man dead for 3 days

now suddenly isn’t where he should be.

You see,

Hope is a Person.

Hope is Christ.

The Living One, The Living Light. The Living Song.

They say that Love is a verb,

but I say that

Hope is, too.

Hope is a verb: Choice:

a choice to trust that Good wins

though Evil grins in its face.

That it might take years

to break free, to see,

but that sometimes,

sometimes it

just takes 3 days

for the Phoenix-Man

to rise from his own ashes.

Sometimes it’s just smashing

through voices that scream

we will never rise from ours.

Hope is a choice to worship

Now

in our deserts, in our ashes

Now.

Hope refuses to ignore pain

but chooses

to gain balance by leaning

by clinging to his phoenix wings

to just keep flying through it,

Hope is keeping our

eyes open in the pit.

Though our throats burn

are parched with ash,

are raw from the impact of an all-too-recent crash,

Hope is a choice to sing,

sing like Sam in the spider’s lair,

sing like Paul and Silas without a prayer

in some ancient jail,

knowing if He doesn’t bail

us out now, he will.

Hope keeps on singing till our lungs strain—

knowing that we have nothing to lose

and everything to gain in Him:

our Highest Hope, who

sings above

sings below

sings behind

sings before us,

sings for us,

and

resonates with the

refrain of

Rescue

over us.