The Beauty of Hopelessness

 

You are hanging from a branch

by your teeth. No way to save yourself

or others who hang, too. Arms that cannot reach

any branch, legs stretch but

cannot find the smooth safe trunk.

All around, your loved ones, friends, strangers hang–teeth clamp bony twigs

that suspend necessary hopes

and plans.

It is hopeless. No rescue will arrive. So you relax, taste the clean, unfamiliar

tang of sap, feel the forgiving wind against

your waving arms, arms

that swim through emptiness.

Without hope, life is

focused, fluid, a ledge

of fragile earth suspended

over the ocean of unknowing, the end

of the branch. Life is

the glorious moment

before the fall when all

plans are abandoned, the love you give

as you hang, loving

those who hang with you.

--Rebecca del Rio