Hope Less

Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

I recently saw this interview with Stephen Jenkinson, where he talks about living without hope — not in the bleak way we might imagine, but as a practice of committing fully to this present moment. I think about this a lot.

In the place of still rest

where the cat balances, three legs on my lap

one, hesitant, pointed in the open air,

there is only this moment

balanced on thin filaments of pure attention.

The cat pulls in her leg,

settles, heavily soft, between my hands on the keyboard.

She breathes on my wrist, holding it

steady in the now, suspended

uncapturable and free

from tethers of both hope and hopeless