Hope     
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson


This came to mind so easily this morning as I walked through the light rain to work. I've never quite agreed with E.D.'s description of hope, but it sure is a lovely little flittering poem and as I discovered this morning, it has a certain hold on the mind much like hope has on the heart.  More often than not hope seems to require a very lot of us, but she's right, it doesn't seem to ask.

Strange though, whatever my feelings of what hope is or is not, this poem is what I've tried to be to somehow embody my name.