There’ll be a sign. Of course, there’ll be a sign.
It’ll be subtle, but it will find you if you open
your heart and let the wind blow through.
Hope can look like winter-bare trees showing
tiny bumps of buds-to-be, or a bird beginning
to trill as you step outside. Or a kitty brushing
your calf or a doggy licking your hand. But hope
can also look like the man standing on the center
divider of the busy intersection with a sign that
simply says, Please. And you do not want to
pass up hope when a sign suddenly appears.
You think all hope is lost? That nothing can
overcome act after act of outrageous cruelty?
Let that exposed heart of yours respond
with tears, with outrage, and let that response
be a sign unto you: HOPE, it may say,
in gigantic, Second Coming type, the kind that
used to blast big news from newspapers.
Stop wherever you are. Look around. Extend
a kind hand to a stranger along with the rest
of your tender self. When you feel another’s
hand in yours, squeeze some lovingkindness
into it. Smile the tiniest bit of mutual hope into
each other’s eyes. Watch it burst into blossom.
and State Route 72 west of Salome in Arizona.
Güd wrtr 
And then there’s the wonderful city on the eastern shores of Mobile Bay: Fairhope, Alabama, an even more hopeful town where my wife and I have sometimes celebrated our wedding anniversaries. Its original platted area has no overhead power lines, and its early twentieth-century homes line mostly cobbled streets framed and overarched by massive oaks, dripping with Spanish moss. Its corporate constitution explains that Fairhope will be “a model community . . . free from all forms of private monopoly and to secure to its members therein equality of opportunity, the full reward of individual efforts, and the benefits of cooperation in matters of general concern.” It does not disappoint!
What a great place to celebrate anniversaries! Here’s to Fairhope… and all forms of hope!