Garden of Voices

Last week, I shared this Pratchett quote: “There should be a word for the microscopic spark of hope that you dare not entertain in case the mere act of acknowledging it will cause it to vanish, like trying to look at a photon.  You can only sidle up to it, looking past it, walking past it, waiting for it to get big enough to face the world.” Then, I asked my Instagram friends to share words that said “microscopic spark of hope” to them. These are some of the words they shared: sideways gleam, breath, comfortably numb, democracy, dormant, glimmer, glint, grace, growth, inkling, longing, seed, shimmer, smidgeon, twinkle, wisp. The haibun that follows contains their words and my feels.

I remember that day… when chaos and anguish named themselves victorious, when temper ran fierily short and compromise turned cryptid, when our dark and our bright couldn’t come together to birth a twilight all could (or wanted to) be thrilled about. I remember feeling a wisp of wonder, a glint of grace, a glimmer, a shimmer, a twinkle, a sideways gleam of something… beautiful and free.

I remember asking, “What is that? What is that dormant seed I see, that comfortably numb warmth spreading yum through tongues and brains and feels? What is that?” I remember a garden of voices answering, “That is your wish and mine kissing reality, that is a smidgeon of democracy longing for more and better… for all.”

in our words,
a growing inkling
of wild hope

“Beautiful, YOU Are”, by Magic Love Crow

- for Poets and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #45: Artistic Interpretation).