The History of Hope

One-tenth of the world’s population

died in the Great Famine (1315-17).

The Black Plague took a third of

Europe and a million Irish starved

from the potato blight,

but the remnant sent up new

sprouts from old roots.

Smallpox wiped out ninety percent

of the indigenous people in the Americas,

six million Jews died in the Holocaust

and the curse of cholera,

killed tens of thousands,

but daffodil bulbs sent

up spring shoots.

Millions of people died in World Wars

but we’re living in the era of

The Long Peace.

Why this great loss of hope?

We’ve been here before—

many, many times.

Spring comes again,

later, dryer,

colder, earlier,

hotter—different,

but it comes.

By Lorraine Jeffery

From: United States