I have been unpacking boxes lately by MT These are mostly boxes of papers and files The ones I “knew” I would need someday. And now, years later, I didn’t know they were there! I hadn’t missed them. Not like I missed Hope! This unpacking process reminds me of hope, Storing it away for a critical day Then not sure what container it is in (Those transparent ones really help!?) What I am finding amongst the papers are files stuffed with old sermons  Or articles on resurrection And I am trying to stay positive  in my overwhelmedness  I am so sure there is an answer or inspiration  Stored in there somewhere This is not like hope, I fear, Hope is not an aging item Hope cannot be put in storage to be dusted off For the day of unjust invasion Hope needs to be cultivated  And ready No matter what Cultivated Nurtured Like the muscle which it is Hope needs a regular routine It needs to be stretched and strengthened I believe that gratitude and compassion  Mercy...

  Consider the Hands that Write this Letter BY  ARACELIS GIRMAY after Marina Wilson Consider the hands that write this letter. Left palm pressed flat against paper, as we have done before, over my heart, in peace or reverence to the sea, some beautiful thing I saw once, felt once: snow falling like rice flung from the giants' wedding, or strangest of strange birds. & consider, then, the right hand, & how it is a fist, within which a sharpened utensil, similar to the way I've held a spade, the horse's reins, loping, the very fists I've seen from roads through Limay & Estelí. For years, I have come to sit this way: one hand open, one hand closed, like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up; food will come from that farming. Or, yes, it is like the way I've danced with my left hand opened around a shoulder, my right hand closed inside of another hand. & how I pray, I pray for this to be my way: sweet work alluded to in the body's position to ...