Ooooooo... I'm coming back to life, as darlin David Gilmour might say; Good Mooooooooooooooooooooornin, Neverland! :)))))) xxxx

HOPE


wakens the dawn wearing
rainbow socks and a smile;

she rekindles the hearth and
piles fruit on worm-eaten tables.
Her thin-air recipes are endless.

She yields her place in the queue,
knowing there’ll be another bus
right behind. Humming in
dark corners of classrooms,
she protects the kids from
back-breaking straws.

She’s anti-virus, anti-crap,
anti-automaton. Each iron fist
is dust beneath her rabbit’s foot,
aspirin in her holy water.

Hope pops a coin into each
desperate-emptied beer glass
clogging up the bar and
stocks the all-night chemist.

She counts her chickens well
before bed and nightly gathers more
(Reynard always thwarted
by the thickness of her skirts).

Though the house be drear and dark,
she casts Rooster a wink; he gleams
within her incandescence as
together they begin to crow.