A Letter to Hope

Dear Hope,

"When we think of crossing the river to each other, you from the gorge of the landslide, to me at the crest of the typhoon, it is then we will find ourselves in a dead imaginary." -- Cindy Juyoung Ok

You are gone and have been gone for quite some time. What happened to the days when you found my spirit, and lifted it up into light? Those far-off days when I would scour the land for seedlings, and upon finding they exist, save them by the handful from the hungry desert. Endless, it slowly creeps up the coast, consuming forest and baking earth alike. But does it exist past the river, past the delta, and across the ocean? 

I know you must be out there, even in these times, across the vast sea searching for me. I know because without knowing I would have already sank into the charred ground of smoldering forests, or the strangling vines choking life back into silent skyscrapers. 

You found your way to me when once: when there was a rare rain and all, it seemed, from you to me soaked in the land’s tears. It was then some of the ancient forests began to stand again, once lying, body across body, splintered by great storms. It was then I began rebuilding. 

Do you remember how I trekked far to gather what little water was left in deep droughts? How every tree I pleaded to grow? You did miracles for me! Once, in that third rapid freeze, do you remember how hard it was to pull my lifeless body up from the frozen ground? Somehow, you thought I was worth touching, and made all the difference.

You lent yourself to me often when I was young, embracing me in the form of family every day. Mother would always have you wrapped up inside of her, refusing to let you leave. When I was a mere sapling, so new to life and laughing, do you remember the faun?

How two creatures, amid their species end, collided? When we found him so skinny and helpless, it was only I who held on and wouldn’t let go, even as we had passed countless deaths before. Remember how we worked together, how you made Mother and the rest of them give up the water and time and love to nurture him? The way we grew up together, navigating a world of ruin, made the world feel of budding possibility. 

It was the great storm that finally shattered us apart, when the forest washed away, and with it, all of what we had. Standing upon the last ridge to the sea, I stood with nothing: no tears to cry, hands to hold, or laughter to echo. I stood with nothing but the hope of you: the hope of hope itself. And so I stood, grasping that last thread of life above a sea of ruin. I looked across the vast sea, and thought I saw land, but the distance must have blinded you. It was then for the first time I feared that the typhoon rushing across would soon swallow you whole, as it has done since our ancestors poisoned the waters it rose from.

These thoughts have kept me alive, but without your presence now I am not living, merely wishing for all that could have been. 

So please write back. Because you have to be out there,

Somewhere,

Across the river.

Love, 

Some Myth