Hope

In the dripping dark,
Deep, deep underground
Huddled on a tiny rock shelf,
hungry, tired, scared,
Only their newly learnt meditation skills
helping them hold to any shreds of hope.
And those flickering torches of hope
kept aflame
were surely the light
That drew the searchers on.

On and on through
That 'cave of the reclining lady',
On and on through,
Until finally
the team was found,
bewildered, blinking and blinded in the light
as that first rescuer emerged from below them
asking
“How many of you are there - 13? Brilliant!”
“We are coming, it’s okay. Many people are coming.”

That was when hope
took shape and sound for them,
What was a flicker
now becoming a steady glow.

They knew that labyrinthine cave
As their adventure playground.
In they went that day,
carefree and celebrating
the sky clear and giving no indication
of the monsoon season
arriving a week early this year.
But, in a rush and roar of water
they found themselves trapped,
Their way out drowned
By flooding murky waters,
Unnavigable except by those few outside
Whose skills had been honed
Through years of following the urge
To pit themselves against the perils of cave diving.

Now,
the world drew together as one,
answering that glow of hope deep in the belly of the earth.
Generous hearted, courageous and intrepid rescuers
united in their determination
to execute a successful mission
through many feats of bravery and ingenuity.
One of them, tragically, paying the ultimate price.

Down into the labyrinth they went,
fighting a current so strong
that it was only inch by inch
that could they pull themselves along
through the mud and murky waters,
Sometimes through caverns,
and sometimes through
the most impossibly small rock passages.

That glow of hope
became a blaze,
Fanned from all corners of the globe
by multitudes of heartfelt prayers of love and faith and hope
of all shape and size,
all creed and belief,
All,
with the ultimate goal of achieving that hope
that only days before had been
faint subterranean flickers.

And that's how the fervent hope of the world as one
was realised.
In that coming together in the universality of
Love and hope and the unalloyed joy
of goodness expressed.

When our light seems all but extinguished
And the darkness deep and cold,
Hope is ever the flame that keeps us warm
Love, its realisation.

© Megan Chapman