Hope is a muscle not wishbone or whisper,
but sinew and tendon
that flexes beneath the skin
with every reimagined dream of a better world.

It is not fragile,
but the steady clench
of hands in the dirt,
the slow, stubborn lift
of eyes toward a dawn
that hasn’t yet arrived.

We exercise hope
each time we imagine
a world remade:
where children run to school
in a city unscarred by war
Instead of running from guns at feeding stations.

We exercise hope each time we imagine
A place where hard borders are softened
into warm welcome Where knocks at the doors are from friends, instead of agents of the state sowing fear of deportation

We exercise hope each time we imagine
Sitting down beside rivers teeming with fish
and where forests and fields of wheat breathe
without fear of tanks and guns.

Hope is not passive—
it sweats and strains,
aching after use,
growing stronger
with every act
of radical imagination.

It is the muscle
that refuses to atrophy
when news darkens,
hope strengthens the heart’s resolve
to plant seeds
in battered soil,
to write poems
in the rubble,
to dream aloud
in the silence
between sirens.

Hope is a muscle—
embrace it,
stretch it,
shape it
into the world
we long to see