‘Only Hope remained there within
                     the rim of the great jar’ (after
                     Pandora had let loose disaster
                     and affliction).

These days-these years-
when powers and principalities of death
weigh down the world, deeper, deeper
than we ever thought it could fall and still
                                      keep slowly spinning,
Hope, caught under the jar’s rim, crawls
like a golden fly
round and around, a sentinel:
it can’t get out, it can’t fly free
among our heavy hearts—
but does not die, keeps up its pace,
pausing only as if to meditate
a saving strategy…