Hope by Shirani Rajapakse

Photo by Omar William David Williams

Hope 

Sometimes the sun smiles through holes in the roof,

that piece of plastic shielding us

blowing messages of sadness from other

places, scattering our words to winds.

 

If I had a bottle I’d store my memories inside

and fling in far into the ocean, but they are all

shattered into miniscule pieces,

broken

like my dreams every night.

 

Sometimes.

 

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to walk

outside to the silence

not see men with guns growing out of their arms,

taste freedom on the air and not breathe in

the foul stench of gun powder or

the stink of death calling, calling.

 

It’s just a dream that disappears

when I awaken to the sound of war howling outside

my window.

 

Sometimes I wish I was somewhere else

and I didn’t have to

grow up so soon.

 

Sometimes hope is all that’s left, but that’s begun to

disappear like the piece of photograph of my

grandmother that’s

turning the color of old paper,

dirty brown and fading.

© Shirani Rajapakse

This poem appears in Shirani’s new poetry collection, The Way It Is. 

Shirani Rajapakse is an internationally published, award winning poet and short story writer. The author of four collections of short stories and three collections of poetry, her work appears in many literary journals and anthologies and has been translated into Spanish, Farsi, French and Chinese. She has travelled widely, but calls Sri Lanka home.