Hope is a Violent Thing

Hope is a Violent Thing

Emma Baker

Once, I handed my Mother that poem
From Spoon River about the woman
Who lost children but still shouted her joy
To the hills, harvesting as much as had been
Taken from her.

You are too hard on me, she said,
And gave back the poem,
Her face sinking into loneliness.

Can poems do violence?
I only wanted to wrestle the hope from her heart
Because if she didn’t love life, then how could I?

I think hope is a violent thing.
A thrashing against the cage,
A relentless drumming in line,
A liturgy demanding the words from your lips until you can say
I trust in the Lord

over and over and over and over and over

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Emma Baker
Poet & Therapist

Emma is a therapist-in-training in the Seattle area. She writes in order to synthesize what she knows of herself and others, and to process grief, God, and goodness. When she's not writing or practicing therapy, Emma can be found singing in her car.

Photography by Jonathan Borba