NN8 Writers Group have been tasked with writing on the theme of “Hope”. I find myself again writing with two voices, but it is the hopeful one that speaks the loudest.
Hope isn’t the taste of a pear, just a day older than perfect, tinged with the blue-green taste of the bruise, spoiling it from the inside, out.
Neither is it the smell of flowers left at the graveside to wilt and frost, turning brown and limp.
Hope isn’t the daily Covid count, awful yet compulsive listening. Neither is it the reassuring words as the monitors buzz and the cries as they fall silent.
Hope isn’t scratchy and harsh, its billowy and enveloping, fleeting and insubstantial.
It’s the smell of the wind and the rain on a mountain top and the sound of a stream gushing over stones on the valley floor.
Hope comes as the taste of a sweet ripe peach, bursting with juice and quenching thirst.
It’s the sight of fragile snowdrops emerging strong, from the frosted ground.
Hope shouts from the roof tops,
“All will be well.”
Hope whispers in the ear,
“And all manner of things will be well.”
