Hope, The Ballast of One’s Life: A Poem by Kalucharan Sahu

Darkness often creeps on cleft feet
In your unguarded moment.
The sky, above your head, looks lost
In the sunless clouds, hanging low;
Any time it may rain, leaving you forlorn
In the torrent of uncertainities.
But hope, which flutters in your heart,
Like a bird, spreads its feathers,
Takes you out from the depths of
Frustration, flies, spread-winged ,
Over the firmament, and around the
Seamless horizon, unfettered and fearless.
No cage is strong enough to confine it;
No tether strong enough to restrain;
And , no darkness is deep enough to
Make it blind and path less.
Hope’s the thing with feathers,
It holds the beacon in darkness.
And guides you, when everything else fails.
It’s the ballast, which steadies the hull in storm.