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Blake Everitt
THE PROBLEM WITH HOPE

Because I do not hope to hear again
do not hope to hope again
I am here with Atlantic clay
a beige-white glacier
a calm sapphire riot
with the sea flowering in shreds
as resurrection shades across the silence
If I could bear the news
the dear voices spent
parting with their daily hurt
seeing again in miles of sand
the hands unheld and feet scared to fall
I’d reach for words I do not hope to say again
to quietly breathe and see spring leaves
tease the darkness by the chapel wall
as I imagine the souls of monks
transformed as they might be
in sacred-organic light
pausing to appreciate the white-blossom blaze
of plum trees by the river
but for you that pray please keep on praying
until skins reclothed in pale teal
are one with the leaves repeating their fall
About the writer:
Everitt’s poems have previously appeared in the following places – Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts (MA), Hawk & Whippoorwill (MA), Time of Singing (PA), Harbinger Asylum (TX), The Dawntreader, The Poetry Village, Littoral Magazine, Eye Flash Poetry, Drawn to the Light Press, Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World, Brevity, Quarr Abbey Newsletter, The Recusant, Dead Beats, As We See It: An Anthology of Creative Writing, the anthology Book of Christian Poems, as well as in audio form on This is a Good Place to Kiss and The Blue Morphosis. Everitt is a 32-year-old poet based on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.
Image: The Beach at Heist by Georges Lemmen (1865-1916). Oil on wood. 14.7 x 17.9 inches. 1891. Public domain.