Emily Dickinson says Hope is the thing with feathers...

        Daydreaming about if Emily Dickinson were to be my literature teacher. In hopes of making me explore my fantasy about her poem "Hope is the thing with feathers", she asks me to pen down my feelings about the subject. 

        When it comes to exploring the boundaries of my fantasy, I am someone who has always found difficulty in imagining things that are beyond this real world. My fantasy would allow me to imagine only those behaviour or things which I find relatable with the world I am physically surviving in. So if she says hope is the thing with feathers, I might not be able to think of a unicorn with feathers, or the mighty big gigantic feathers of the angel. For me, it is easier to imagine maybe the feathers of a dove or a crow or a pigeon. To be more colorful I might even go to think about feathers of a parrot or maybe peacock. This might indicate that my inclinations are more towards realism. 

Anyways, she says in her poem,

"Hope is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul-

And sings the tune without the words-

And never stops - at all-"

        I think that there are two types of hope. One hope is the result of romanticism. It is the one that makes you think about the angelic gloomy wings. It is the one that makes you think about the white feathers dove has. It is the hope in which your soul listens to a lullaby composed of those musical notes which are capable of producing dopamine or serotonin in your body. This is a kind of hope that makes you feel the invisible wings you think you have, attached outwardly at your scapulae. You feel the presence of such wings because of the non-stop intoxication and wooziness from the romanticized hope. 

Emily says, 

"And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me."

        The power of this intoxication from the romanticized hope is such that even in the hardest of days when everything seems jet black, a black that is not just the absence of light but is a giant monstrous creature tickling your fears, this powerful hope helps you to think of your white feathers shining in the face of this black monster. Just imagine this black monster to be a powerful gale and your white feathers to be the sweetest song heard aloud in this gale. Somehow this black compliments the shine of the white feathers, this strong gale compliments the echoing of this sweetest song. This song is something that has given warmth to the spirits listening to it. This is a hope that asks nothing from the one who is consuming it or who wants it. 

        The idea of a romantic hope looks so appealing but it is not something with which I can relate my life experiences. My sobriety hasn't allowed me to remain intoxicated with a romanticized hope for so long. It occurred to me that there's another kind of hope when I came across this dead bird with feathers having still the color of life during a walk alone adventure on the streets today. 

        For so many of us, hope is the unexplored territory of disappointments or melancholy. Hope is like this bird with the feathers, who seems dead, who cannot keep you warm with positivity but we never know how death can transform one existence into a completely different form of existence. I'm not talking about this dead bird's soul going to heaven over here. On the contrary, I'm talking about the cells of this bird decomposing to become one with the driving energy of this universe. 

        I like to think about the hope which helps me embrace the ugly face of depression or it helps me accept the idea that it's okay to be prone to melancholy when all the odds are against your favor. The hope with white gigantic wings asks you to fight depression or melancholy with all its mighty strength. Have you ever heard about the idea that the more you fight the more it will strike again like a string being compressed? Befriend it and you'll be able to walk with it. 

        I do want to tell Emily, that my hope is this thing with feathers, which is dead, which cannot sing happy lullabies for me, which makes me feel sad and cold, in the face of gale this thing might shatter to pieces without being heard by listeners. But those who have seen it silently decomposing even if the pieces of wings are shattered, they know that this dead bird with feathers still has the potential to feed other forms of life, this dead decomposing bird has the potential to become a part of ultimate existence in the form of this realm's driving energy. My hope is this thing with feathers that helps me to embrace the depressed state I am in, it helps me to befriend it so that I may continue to walk with it learning from it, growing with it. This hope demands nothing from me, this hope makes me not a soldier in the battle field of sadness but maybe a cactus growing in desert. 

- Picture by Sheliza Hyder

- Written by Sheliza Hyder

Poem Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314