When Hope Shifts

there was an earthquake a few years ago in Turkey

Jesur found himself alone in his flat

with the walls shaking and this part was unclear

but he opened the windows and didn’t jump

instead made himself descend the staircase

all the way to the ground floor where he exited

the building and found a young child there

who looked at him and where Jesur expected

to find terror he instead found hope in the face

and then he moved to Berlin alone

without the boy but with a suitcase full

of shaken up trauma and we all could feel that

through his choppy words that didn’t prevent

his story to come through clear as day

there were many other stories of hope shifting

that others in the circle shared so effortlessly

from being lost to being found to being carried

to being compared to a forward moving machine

like a bicycle that needs to be pedaled perpetually

in order to maintain the balance

there were tears and then there were laughs

just as there must always be sun after it rains

of course hope is the thing with feathers

but hope is also the thing covered in grease

and burned with doubt and twisted up with desire

and it is also the thing with scales

that weighs upon the heart

and the light in a child’s eyes that is still

a child who has lived through an earthquake

a child who now wears the face of a man