Headlines nurse a generation of cynics and madmen with microphones,

Hope is out of fashion, except when Twitter’s watching, and

post-truth politics are in. I’m too tired for trends, though.

Maybe god lost his faith a long time ago, but

I still believe

in those lured outside by the rumour of rain

and four a.m. fog on the city,

who leap off speeding trains, hear silence, walk directionless

yet always end up collapsing on the shore, homesick

and heart-mad.

I still believe

in old fools out on their verandas, chewing evening nepenthe,

their grief a living testimony that history still exists, however

shriveled and beaten.

In quiet lives spent trying to dive deeper,

expelled to the surface by shortness of breath

just when they thought they finally had it –

that they finally understood it. Returning to land

only to grapple with smoke, still convinced they can forge it

into being, and forge being into

beauty.

I still believe in art,

and hope,

and resistance,

and you.