A hundred years from tomorrow

hope will be illegal,

not because the act alone

has ever done enough 

to change the world

but because hope does just enough

to disturb others from their lassitude.

That agitation is what they fear,

for tremors both predict and follow

those quakes that reset nations.

Hope is the thaw,

however temporary,

that cracks the asphalt

sealing earth away from sky,

a unison of two absolutes

that have driven humanity forward

since we had the words to describe ourselves.

Others possessions they can outlaw,

but interpretations of the very words

we use to fathom our reality

that bubble from our minds

so unnecessarily

cannot be calmed 

quite so readily.

They may try to trim the language

we use to wire our dialectics

and think they limit our prospects

in the process of their subject subversion,

though they waste their effort

if they cannot limit

the depths our hope and imagination stir

as they see what may be

a month, a year, or a century yet.

Proscribing ideas never succeeds;

banishing hope certainly won’t either.