How many times in nearly forty years Have shoots of hope pushed through the weary ground And straightaway been crushed? So many times That there’s no glint of green left to be found. And so you wait—damn, what else can you do?— And vaguely watch while others rush along To healing waters that you just can’t reach Without the help of someone kind and strong, Until one day you’re seen and the full weight Of your long wait is measured in the hands Of one who’s counted, blade by blade, each dream That’s been cut down. You thought that barren land Was all that you had left, but in this rain (So gentle) and this sun, hope grows again.
I intended this as a melancholy poem about how even the joy of a miracle doesn’t negate the decades of sadness that lead up to it, but my subconscious theology is apparently better than my conscious theology because it turned out to be a hopeful poem after all. It does sometimes seem (to me at least) that the good things of the present can’t atone for the heartaches of the past, and I’m sure that that’s often the case. But the good things of the future will atone for them—the future in which, to borrow from Tolkien, everything sad will come untrue. So even if we’re reflecting on thirty-eight (or sixty-eight or ninety-eight) damn hard years, a hopeful poem is never entirely out of place. With this Son, in his reign, hope grows.
You know, sometimes I love your commentary even more than the poem itself.