There in the uncandled night
something infinitesimal blinked and stretched.
She had a name but no one knew yet,
she was all potential, her newness was alive.
The moon kept her silence, all the stars
held their steady slowness above.
There in the deep sack of night, a tiny
Hope was born. She carried her sisters
called Peace, called Joy, called Love
along every byway and stream, through every
dwelling of every land, across every belief and
across those with no beliefs at all. Remember today,
my Beloveds, how out of smallness
comes the vast work, the staggering miracle
of life itself. Awaken your candle out of night’s
silence, then as you tend it in your heart, watch it
blossom to that fiery beacon from which Hope arises,
whether that hope is a child or a solstice, a feeling or
thought or something undefined, yet no less holy
for want of a name.
This is what I wish to place upon us all: that beneath
the stillness of the patient stars, we find ourselves at home
with Hope and all her sacred sisters.