! ! Hope And Light, And Love

You – whose inner strength, I always think to be the greater than my fluctuating own – ask, only half humorously, as business, family support, collapses all around, for a poem of hope and light and love… and I fall still and silent; for to me only stillness, silence, are my answer to those mighty questions of what within ourselves we have, and have not; lose and find again… and in the stillness of the silence, because I am of ‘certain’ yet uncertain age… hear the family voice still sounding in the ear of memory of that sweet Stoicism of the Victorian working class: …‘working’ indeed; even to the work-house… and ‘class’; yet class with pride; hope (wasn’t the Baptist chapel built along with Hope Street?): light; and love… that Stoicism (would they know the word?) that folds its hands onto its tidy lap, when all around collapses, and says quietly, “It’s trying.. as the good Lord knows, for he’s tried me oftentimes enough…” and Sunday starts and ends the week, the ‘day of rest’ when God and Man work hardest, and together.. that sweet Stoicism… that responds to the muted tea-cup whine of others, with ‘We must just count our blessings, dear…’ or break into the mutual relief of song: ‘Count your blessings, one by one’.. and never was the One more to be sought, whose blessings are only counted, as sleep’s sheep leap over the stile of thought, counted one by one; each one blessing, blest, containing All - All, and as you said yourself, Hope; Light; and Love; these three..