Standing
between yesterday’s history and tomorrow’s mystery,
he
clung to the wings of a dream with a hope born anew.
Hope
was the last item in Pandora’s box.
Hope
is the well that the desert hides somewhere within it.
But
he saw his companions falling on the way, falling dead.
They
had hope, they had dreams,
that
they would be free next Christmas.
When
Christmas passed, they postponed their dream
to
next Easter.
Easter
too came and went.
Too
many broken promises of hopes and dreams
break
the wings.
Break
the heart.
Face
the reality, he said to himself.
We
are in hell, that’s the truth.
How
to beat the heat, find the ways.
That’s
the real hope.
Hope
is not a longing.
Hope
is not a dream.
Hope
is the toil that breaks the shackle
bit
by bit.
The
last item in Pandora’s box.
Note: The poem was inspired
by the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Jim
Stockdale was a United States military officer held captive for eight years
during the Vietnam War. He was tortured more than twenty times by his captors
and never had much reason to believe he would survive the prison. He saw his companions losing their hope with
each passing Christmas and Easter to which they had attached their dreams and
hopes. He did not nurture such hopes and
dreams. Instead he worked on developing
a code with which he could communicate with other prisoners. He discovered a way of passing certain secret
information to his wife too using the code he had developed. He knew hope was not just a dream. A hope that is a mere dream can kill. That is Stockdale Paradox.
Hope, sometimes, kills when it becomes difficult to be commemorated. Great thoughts.
ReplyDeleteHope is a double-edged sword.
DeleteI loved it:)
ReplyDelete