Monday Sonnet: Hope

I’m asked to write of hope, a subject which
Resists festoons of metaphor with almost
The same propriety as death. Foremost
Among the skills that make a poet rich
We find embellishment, and hope is not
An envelope to print with beauty’s stamps.
Hope will shine in concentration camps,
In slaughters, you will find it in the rot
That feeds the seeds of flowers, underground.
Hope lies in silence, cloaked by shade or wings;
It is one of those elemental things
That come before the fury and the sound
And speak before the wisdom that they teach:
They’re lost once their own ports have come in reach.