Words of Hope

I dream of a world, where our differences..
Are the binding power of our communities.

During the pandemic, while anti-vaxxers,
lockdown protestors, raged,
the rest of us, somehow umbilically attached
to an ancestral past,
helped the isolated, the infirm, the aged.

Let hope lope alongside you like the wolf we thought
had died out, teeth and claws and howl and all. You
thought you were alone. But there it is, so untamed
that the fact it's walking so peaceably alongside you
is what folk used to call a bloody miracle.

A kingfisher, on the day my son was born last summer.
A flash of bright blue that stayed with us. Society changed
for a virus so we can do it for the planet. Recovery has
been possible in my own life and I want it for the world.

Tomorrow is a wonderful vision you had today. It begins in contemplation and in courage, it meets the light of Glasgow past and present, and is somehow sharpened by it, joining with the vision of others to make a brand new way of seeing.

The Spirit of Optimism in the young and their fresh ways
of seeing the World - so many chances to regenerate.

Conscious kindness.
Perpetual presence of momentary joys.
Eternal love in all its forms.
A home for all and softer places to fall for the fallen
and gentler lands as promised for the journeying.
Belonging.
Giving.
Dancing.
Singing.
The broodiness of our own revolution.

The more I live, the more I feel like past, present, and
future are unfolding all at once, and there is no time to
waste. This fills me with responsibility, despair, and hope.

We should be thankful we are alive
despite the broken headlights
despite the long, exhausting dying.
We should be amazed. We are all held
together by 700 skeletal muscles.
We should thank them each individually
for holding us calmly in their company.

Hope will find us.
Knocking on our armoured hearts.

Startling as a blackbird’s song in winter.
Each note a shaft of light to make the dust dance.

Hope

Don’t doubt the flicker of hope.
Great flames are sparked by little pilot lights.

When I feel like the world is drowning in hate and injustice,
just witnessing one little act of kindness can make the
darkness crumble away.
Once more, I can see light shining through the clouds.
And once more, there is hope.

Suddenly we stopped, looked up, and realised that we
already had it all, right where we stood.

Hope is Black Lives Matter.
Hope is MeToo. Hope is my son
and my daughter. Hope is a girl called Greta.
Hope is the colour of the future.

Inspiration floating - no style - strictly routes outta scotjam
Pillar beacon – fragile – bend or break - which way's up?
Planetary wrapping over cracks - never mek nah plan-yet
Stop carbon nightmare – suckin’ it in?
Eb’ry breathing space unclogs yuh mind, yuh lungs
Highwire dexterity
Cloud-surfing in mild skies -
High stone altar jooks.
Needle’s on-point

Hope is an unseen light.
It is fearless, even when we
are afraid. It lights crevices. It waits.
Hope has patience.
It will appear.
It doesn't need us to know it's there.
It knows for us.
It doesn't need us to look for it,
just that we don't look away.

Amongst all of this necessary life
ours is a small, humble time,
a slice of forever to use well.

I somehow know I'm right to feel this delicate unfamiliar
shimmering thing
Fluttering so gently in my heart
This so fragile thing we have almost all forgotten
This exquisite evanescent beautiful thing called hope

Treeclimber

Me: old aching earthbound muscles, worrying you would fall.
You: laughing, grabbing for higher branches
Calling “I used to be a monkey!” from the topmost leaves
The sun shining through your hair.

An Taigh Gorm

Gach latha, ghabh i seachd cuairt dhen làr,
na ballachan a’ càrnadh, na h-uinneagan meallach
ach, ann an oisean a’ mhullaich, bha an damhan-allaidh
pràmhach, a’ guidhe gun toireadh i an taigh gorm oirre.

(The Blue House

Each day, she paced the floor seven times,
the walls piling like cairns, the windows enticing,
but, in the corner of the ceiling, was a spider,
drowsy, hoping that she’d embrace the blue house.

Gaelic has various types of house denoted by colour. An taigh dubh, the black house – the traditional house in the Hebrides. An taigh geal, the new house – often with a conservatory. An taigh dearg, the red house, is the brothel. However, loveliest of them all is an taigh gorm, the blue house, the great outdoors where the roof is a great expanse of sky.)

Your finger points up to the living
Sun above
broiling, an eternal gyroscope in
quantum spin, a ticking minute hand,
a blistering valve of light, light, light.

If we keep a stiff eye focussed, don’t stare
directly into it, we won’t be blinded.
There will be no

FADE TO BLACK.

Try, whistles the wind. Try, sings the sky.
Try, howls the mountain. The newborn calls.
It sounds like, Try.
The burn cries, Try. The loch cries, Try.
The tree, the bird, the fish, the bell. Try, try, try.

The streets will be full again
The music good again
The gentle will rule again
And the lover will be human
The fools will be found out
The lies will be drowned out
The sun had its practise
A lifetime of rising

the mouth of this river is running out of words
despite despair discreet elders sit gently among us

vakuru vakati muromo hauzarirwi nerwizi
wangu ngauyambuke mhiri kwemhirizhonga
mangwana kunonaya chete
Hekani

Bi dòchasach! Na coimhead
air na duilgheadasan a tha
ri thighinn, ach an fheadhainn
a tha sinn air ceannsachadh.

(Have hope! Don’t look
on the troubles
facing us, but on those
we have conquered.)

Carson a tha sinn dìreach
nar suidhe an-seo, an dòchas?
Feumaidh sinn rudeigin
a dhèanamh!

(Why are we just
sitting here, hoping?
We need to do
something!)

Dìnnear fallain
obair chruaidh
coiseachd.
A h-uile duine toilichte
air glan shaoghal uaine.

(Healthy dinner
hard work
walking.
Everyone happy
in a clean green world)

I want to see lots of people with lots
of animals and none sick or have
no mums or dads
I would like to live on a farm and have dogs,
cats, chickens, llamas and donkeys
I want to have lots of friends and we can
go to the big fields and play all day

There's only one Earth
We won't get another chance
Please look after it

When life is dim and you realise the damage done to
our planet, just look around and you will find caring
people who are able and willing to help. I always
remember that anyone can make a difference.