Hope in the Mist

A poem

Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash

Mist hangs in the air
like extinguished
lighting bugs might,
blotting out the future, or
whatever horizons
are made of.

In this muffled silence
of wet pre-dawn
you know a lonelier
loneliness — a brief fear
the morning may not
arrive.

It occurs to you loneliness
and loss of hope
are two similar ways
of being dismantled
from the inside;

and this consumes you,
until in the midst
of your wandering,
the sun suddenly
makes its way to you,
molecule by molecule,
diffused and refracted,
but steady.

It occurs to you —
doubt is defeated this way,
one torch at a time
until the whole world
is on fire.