Yeah...I can see "hope" in this.Very nice.

A most moving poem, Tara - this is wonderful, and really reflects the balance between hope and hopelessness.

This poem hits very close to home. Dealing with starting over after everything is taken away is no easy matter, five years and I still struggle with it every day.

Wonderful poem Tara. God bless.

Very moving and touches the soul.

Brilliantly succinct

very moving indeed!!

Tara, this is a really touching poem. Beautiful and very moving. Thank you for sharing it with us.

"Nana korobi ya oki" (Seven times down, eight times up.) ~ Japanese proverb

Sometimes its not a question of hope. It becomes a matter of being so stubborn you are willing to wait out the fates. And then, eventually, the sun comes out again.

This is a beautiful and touching poem and so very true. Been there, done that, kicked ass.

Awesome....

well i'm back, and before I go to bed I'm going to comment on one more piece of yours, and then bill's (I mean one more piece for now, not for the rest of the time I'm back!). So onto this poem. First, on the music of your poem...

you share with us in little gifts, little delicacies. You have a number of 5 line stanzas, and they each complete a whole world of feeling. And then you use 2 line stanzas as if to make a conclusion or important point about what you've said in the others. Or to turn everything around, the twist of truth. It's all very intuitive. And you use long and short lines in alternation so intuitively and effectively. Then, your near-the-middle-of-the-poem two couplets are perfect in completing that whole part of the poem. Like thought punctuation: "Praying for a miracle/Did not dissuade death...Hope/Became a four-letter word." Yesss. Great division to bring home your meaning. And that "four-letter word" is a terrific phrase for the hell of holding onto hope. Then there's your natural sense of getting us into your thoughts, where you give flowing longer thoughts and then---suddenly---short succinct ones. It's a rhythm, it's a balance, it's a musical thing. ("...About hope/And hopelessness/About balancing disparity"---first, two two-word lines which are so direct ((and opposite)), which are then brought together in a more flowing multi-syllable line. I jus think that's so right, musically. Or (I hope this isn't pedantic! I feel these things, they're not technical to me), here's another: "Hope attaches to emotion/Ties your soul/To an unknown outcome/Breaks your heart/Again and again": Italics are the short lines. (well, duhhhhh, mark!) Your short follow ups like "ties your soul" or "breaks your heart" are really tara things: I mean you do that kind of long/short, or multi/few syllable alternation, or complex meaning/direct meaning alternation with total aplomb. And those are just 2 examples. And then, "again and again" is a perfect ending of that thought...the flow of 'again' is soft and flows, very different from "heart" or "breaks"; and it gives the endless circle of hope a kind of river feeling...it just goes on and on...

I think this can all sound very nitpicking, but you've become so natural at these layers of language and expression, they just come from you naturally. (And this is how people discuss poems, in my past.) You may labor for these things---which is wholly natural---but your finished piece is as right as rain. And there are things like "In my now hopeless state...The willingness to see"---long complex syllable lines---ending, like the end of a short piece of music, with: "Commit/Reach out". That's real poetry-music. You do that alot, and it always has cadence, with natural beginnings-middles-and-ends. (After all, poetry is the closest language gets to music.) Your stanzas are often little mini-gardens. You're really fine at these things, tara, you make short stanzas sing, dance, or weep for us, whatever you need them to do. And they help turn us down the next street, they guide us to the next part of town...

Then there's your usual rhyming---I mean vowel, consonant rhyming (etc), not end rhyme. (Though that's fine too.) 2 examples: "Did not dissuade death" (3 d's), "abysmal existence"---the "y" and "i". Music.

But, to get off of poetic structures, there's your vision. I wholly get the move from hope to hopelessness, and that you're using that word in a very Eastern way: As we've discussed, not "I'm hopeless! I don't want to go on!" But "leave hope alone, free yourself, find the light everywhere, don't get tangled in the tangles of disappointed desire..." That's what buddha meant (or whoever was believe to be buddha) when he said to tear down the rafters of your house and find your original freedom and self. A yogi I knew spoke of a place at the center of life which glows and "knows not a word": He was speaking of a place where hope is non-operable, and where light is what matters, and acceptance. That's the kind of hopelessness you're talking about, I know. And maybe your friend is too? Maybe she was getting at that too.

Finally, you end not just with the "the freedom from crash and burn" (which, btw, has a sweet 3 "r" repetition, more rhyme) (and that follows "abysmal existence"); but with the embrace of a new friend (or a deeper connection with an old one). It's a loving, perfect way to end...as if to say that that is the answer to the hope/no-hope merry go-round; that's the way to get off of it. I hope this expresses what I felt from your poem. It's powerful, but succinct, and it's a very touching piece. Wonderful work, Tara.