What makes it seed
when shape or size or species
range across a spectrum
too wide to comprehend in
single observations or even
collections of moments of recollections,
for discovering even one more type
will no doubt expand the Venn-circle
until after machinations of categorizations
are exhausted and we finally drift to essence,
it is not type, but function,
that suggests, demarks, defines?
It is the what’s next, and not just the what.
It is the what will be, and not just the is.
It is the stuff of life not yet.
It is a class of hope for even
that which does not comprehend but only is.
And for those with conscious qualities,
it is not of the category of those
myriad hopes-against-hope, but
a tangible, physically-manifest hope;
a hope to be held in one’s hand and
moved to where it is needed,
to be planted not in the ether of consciousness
but in soil or some other fecund medium.
There is no future without it.
Though, because it is not yet,
it may yet not be. Nevertheless, it
remains a promise of future,
of growth, of changing seasons, of
the absolute reality of the not yet,
and thus, itself, potential. Hope.
Poem by Russell Willis
Russell Willis has been profiled in THE POET Magazine and published in over twenty-five online and print journals and sixteen anthologies. Russell grew up in and around Texas, was vocationally scattered throughout the Southwest and Great Plains for two decades, and finally settled in Vermont with his wife, Dawn. Russell’s website is https://REWillisWrites.com