The thing with feathers

There’s an Emily Dickinson poem that’s  been making its way around the blogosphere lately. It begins: “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.”

That one line has been running through my head all week. Yesterday I sat on the back porch in a patch of sunshine, wearing shorts, sharing a grapefruit with Asher. I balanced the white porcelain plate on my knee and we dribbled juice all over ourselves. The older boys ran back and forth with pitchers of water to begin their endless summer game of Kill the Ants.

And I marveled. I marveled at the warm air on my bare skin and how summer has landed itself squarely in my lap. I marveled at how my children have become best friends after so many years of thinking it would all end in some Lord of the Flies moment. And I just kept thinking: Hope is the thing with feathers. Hope is the thing with feathers.

In that moment there was a cry from above. I looked up. A flock of geese, in perfect V-formation, slid their way across the sky. It was as if they pulled spring behind them, unfurling it like a flag as they returned home. Hope, on the wing.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul 

And sings the tune without the words 

And never stops – at all 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard 

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm

I’ve heard it in the chillest land 

And on the strangest Sea 

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

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