Hope: poems by Patrick Connors

Never Lose Hope, image by ShonEjai, on Pixabay, modified

Violet

One candle flickers in the cold dark

waits for the light of the second candle.

This is the season of preparation.

These are the middle times between

the promise and its fulfillment.

I will not get there

by having, by doing, or by getting–

only by rest and reflection.

I know I have been saved from myself.

I know there is hope for the future.

But I don’t know what I have right now.

Previously published in Agape Review and in Morning Muse

Hope

In the season of planned fallow

Seeds I didn’t plant or tend

Bore bitter fruit I had to eat

To keep me going but not thrive

The seeds I desire to plant

And tend for the rest of my days

Seem blown away by changing winds,

Or hidden by the year’s first snow

Patient or not, time will always get

All that it needs for completion

So I settle in for the rest I need

And to make myself ready

Faith worth having grows because

Of powerful storms beyond control;

Shivering and shaken as I am, I await

The proving such tests shall bring

The hope of Spring is all I have

To keep me warm through this Winter

Which doesn’t seem to have an end:

I will hold onto my hope

Previously published in Northern Voices Journal and in Litterateur

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Patrick Connors' first chapbook, Scarborough Songs, was released by

Lyricalmyrical Press in 2013 and charted on the Toronto Poetry Map.

Other publication credits include: The Toronto Quarterly; Spadina Literary

Review; Sharing Spaces; Tamaracks; and Tending the Fire. His first

full collection, The Other Life, was released in 2021 by Mosaic Press.

SPIRIT FIRE REVIEW