Night Weather—Fall, Week 8: Hope

Cynthia Reeves, “Hope,” 1979

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viii

leaves falling
the brightness we long for
circles the moon

*****

Sometimes the brightness we want in our lives seems as far away as the rings around the moon. Sometimes it descends, as it seems to be doing in Reeves’ painting, to meet our hopes as they rise to meet it. Without faith there cannot be hope, or so says the prophet Mormon (Moroni 7:42). He means it theologically—“hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of [our] faith in him according to the promise” (verse 41).

But I believe it is also generally true: without faith in something or reliance on something or someone, it is hard to maintain hope in difficult times. Fall does not seem like the season for hope—“my way of life / Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf” laments MacBeth—but it is a season in which to hope. Loss and disappointments are inevitable, but loss precedes renewal.  

I am writing in the next-to-last week in October; early voting is underway. The polls have shifted but no clear outcome has been forecast. Win or lose, I intend to maintain hope and to refuse the temptation of anger and bitterness or triumphalism. Grace in defeat, magnanimity in victory.


wading the Eno
watching the upward
fall of leaves


lost loves
leaves of the river birch
falling falling


blow of an ax
yellow leaves fall 
ahead of the frost


If we do not hope for what cannot be hoped for, we shall not recognize it.
     —Heraclitus, in Clement, Stromata; cited by Henri de Lubac


how hot these autumn days
the river blooming
with yellow leaves


yellow leaves
carpet the road
going north, going south
—Inspired by Buson
 
 
Posted 6 November 2024, the day after election day. I had intended to post next Sunday or Monday, but today seems a good time to do so. 
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