Hope Is Long

Hope is long

When you’re born.

It’s longer than a cold, cold night

And keeps you nice and warm

Hope is deep

When you take your first step

It goes up past your waist

Gets your ears wet

When you go to school

Hope trails right behind

Sometimes tangles up

But is always there to find

And when you are a teenager

And school is done

Hope becomes a lasso

To catch the sun

And in your twenties

There’s nothing you can’t do

Hope is like a coat

That looks really good on you

And as the years go by

And your youth, it flies away

Your hope becomes a friend

That you cling to every day

And you take life’s knocks

The bores and the thrills

The birthday cards stop coming

And you’re left with all the bills

And that door that is closing

Is getting harder to push

The dreams have all grown up

And they don’t come and visit as much

And you’re standing there one day

And you suddenly start to think

What happened to your hope?

Is it beginning to shrink?

It’s no longer dancing

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

Shorter than an ankle sock

And looking rather pale

You can’t wrap it around anywhere

It’s not flexible or strong

In fact, it’s disappearing

Where did it all wrong?

One day you look around you

And hope has surely gone

It either ran off with the milkman

Or hitchhiked further on

So now, you have no option

There’s only one thing left to do

You must create some new hope

And forget the one that flew

No time to waste – just time to sit

To mend and stitch and sew

And knit yourself a new hope

That will never ever go.