with thanks to Dr. Padma Venkatraman and the Ethical ELA #VerseLove invitation to write a quatrain today on hope, especially, hope overcoming hate: What does hope mean to me? How do I see it? She suggested using a metaphor.
I see hope is as vital to our existence as humans. When I started this blog, I wanted it it to be uplifting and hopeful. The world already has far too much anger and hatred. I struggled with condensing a metaphor for hope that would fit in four lines! I finally settled on a sunflower. It’s too big for all I would say here in regard to hope overcoming hate. Maybe I will try it in another form later. Part of my inspiration comes from sunflowers being planted to absorb radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Technically lines one and three should rhyme but I claim poetic license.
For Day Fourteen of National Poetry Month
Hope Perpetuates
Hope turns its face to the sun
Warming its myriad seeds
Hope’s roots absorb toxins
Cleansing each soul that it feeds.
Sunflower. metin.gul. CC BY
lit bits and pieces 
I did not know about this use for sunflowers. The sun does warm and feed us (as does the Son). Thanks for these hopeful words today.
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Ah, so glad you saw a connection to the Son, Ramona! Faith and hope cannot be separated. I, too, was fascinated by sunflowers being planted to absorb radiation from the soil. A Buddhist temple oversees it. This was also tried at Chernobyl.
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I had never stopped to think about hope in this way before, Fran. Like, I had always thought of hope as additive – as a layer, or as a filling-in of empty space. But this idea of it as a way to CLEANSE that space, to clean us and make us whole. I’m going to have to think about this one. I’m also going to share it with a student blogger of mine, who recently wrote about hope in their own poem…
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So delighted to think of you sharing with the student; would love to know how that goes. The cleansing aspect of the sunflower – removing man-made toxins, although after a natural disaster – really floored me. I thought about our hearts as that fertile soil/soul….
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I’ll let you know how things go with that student – he’s been doing standardized testing all week, so I haven’t gotten any time with him. And yes. Hearts as fertile soil/soil that may, from time to time, need some detoxification…
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Fran, I read your poem yesterday and loved the sunflower as a symbol of hope. Thank you for that analogy.
Interestingly, as I was trying to come up with a topic for my daily poem I was thinking about my OLW – hope. How odd that was the topic at Ethical ELA’s #verselove poem for the day. Oh My! I stayed on that site for some time. What a beautiful site, rich with such great poets and poems! I didn’t get to write my hope poem yesterday but am working on it for today. Thanks again for your poem and the resource. I will watch that site from afar for now. – says the novice!
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Christine, I am happy to know you found the sunflower a good symbol for hope! It was a new way of seeing, for me. So excited that you read the Ethical ELA poems – amazing stuff, for sure! I have enjoyed stretching myself there. Really trying to branch out more with poetry. Amazes me when people say a poem resonates (for one is never quite sure it “works,” lol!). I think your poetry is beautiful – always from the heart. And, if I recall correctly, humorous as well, and Heaven knows we need more to smile about. Thank you so much for these words ❤️
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