Hope

By Lisel Miller It hovers in dark corners Before the lights are turned on, It shakes deep sleep from its eyes And drops from mushroom gills, It explodes in starry heads Of dandelions turned sages, It sticks to the wings of green angels That sail from the tops of maples. It sprouts in each occluded eye Of the many-eyed potato, It lives in each earthworm segment Surviving cruelty, It is the motion that runs From the eyes to the tail of a dog, It is the mouth that inflates the lungs Of the child that has just been born. It is the singular gift We cannot destroy in ourselves, The argument that refutes death, The genius that invents the future, All we know of God. It is the serum which makes us swear Not to betray one another; It is in this poem, trying to speak.