‘Hope’: A Petrarchan Sonnet by Jeffrey Essmann

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Hope

By no means has my hope turned to despair.
I’ve not the wakeful nights, the woeful gaze
Up at the ceiling as I chew the day’s
Disasters and a world beyond repair.
I’ve not that inner desolation where
Your every thought is but a paraphrase
Of emptiness and life itself a maze
Of narratives you’ll never quite outwear.
The hope I hold though now’s a calmer thing,
Less ardent, marked by more sobriety
Than once it had. And that I do not grieve.
I like that it should hum instead of sing
And be inside of me the mystery
That others must draw nearer to perceive.

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Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.