If not hope, then what?
Shweta Srivastav
As an educator and an eternal optimist faced with an unravelling world, this poem reflects my inner state of being. It is an attempt to hold despair and hope in the same breath and to keep choosing to bring forth the optimism, the acts that matter and believing that life takes root in what we call ruins.
If not hope, then what?
Hope, where do you live now?
Buried in landslides?
Burned in wildfires?
Drowned in floods?
Trampled on in warzones?
Hope, where do you live now?
In hands rummaging through rubble,
In hands lifting refuse from the river,
In hands planting saplings in charred earth,
In hands linked together in resistance,
In tiny hands that fly a kite,
If not hope, then what?
If not hope, then what?