This week’s poem, by Janie Gendron, embodies the act of hope through notes written on paper, stones ascended, green pastures imagined. I love the candid, timeless questions that move this poem, and the elemental images that answer them. 

Gendron enjoys gifting poems, entering contests and sharing poetry via readings and hoots. Her poem “Daily Report” won the 2024 Maine Poetry Prize, and her poems can be found at celebrations, on refrigerators, with friends, in the local barbershop and in several New England publications. Gendron is a clinical social worker with a private practice in York and uses poetry in her work with clients.

Hope

Let’s bring back the wailing wall;
shall I meet you there?
Bring all our little slips of paper,
our parcels of longing,
burdens of good intention,
heavy hopes, and wet sorrows?
This is where we stand,
a whisper, a prayer, a wail.
Is there a verdant pasture
beyond the wall, rained by tears?
I see a river, part salt, tidal—
it’s moving; it may be what carries us,
saves us from danger.
We can float, letting go,
How do we get there?
Our wailing wall is hard stone and tall.
If I lift you, you can pull me, together
we can climb, and once over,
we’ll run through the pasture,
toward the river, not look back,
our worries left, sealed in stone.

—Janie Gendron

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Hope” ©2024 by Gendron, appears by permission of the author.