A Small Ode to the Stars and Hope
“My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations” -John Green
This quote, when I read it almost 5 years back, struck a chord in my soul and it still can do so.
Stars are so small, yet so powerful.
Apart from the moon, they’re the only things that bring light to a dark and deep sky.
Like a moth to a flame, I can not resist tilting my face every night to get a look at that endless sea of stars and the lone moon.
A sense of peace, comfort, and belonging sweeps through me and renders me almost speechless.
How can one not even spare a glance at them?
They twinkle down at us in all their glory.
A sea of beacons in the velvety darkness of the sky.
A ray of light in the endless cloak of night.
A flicker of fire in the suffocating silence of the dark.
Isn't that what hope is as well?
A spark of umeed in the khof- inducing night?
(Don’t worry, translations are provided in the end. See you there if you can make it that far!)
Hope. Umeed. La Esperanza. надежда. l’ espoir. hoffnung.
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No matter the language, hope is a universal feeling. An emotion that creeps up on you. It comes as a surprise in the most depressing of times.
For me, the stars represent hope.
They’re always there, aren’t they? Millions of miles away, yet they shine down at us as if the distance between them and us doesn't exist.
Hypothetically speaking, they could’ve let that dark expanse of sky swallow them up. They could’ve lost their sparkle over the millennia of their existence. They could’ve disappeared.
Yet, they are still there. Existing. Surviving. Shining.
I think that hope was best summed up by Pablo Neruda when he said “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
You may go through some bad times but they won’t be the worst.
At the end of a storm, there is always a rainbow.
You will persevere by hanging onto the delicate thread of hope.
In the end, you will survive. Like the rainbow, like spring, like the stars, and like hope.
Translations as promised!
Umeed: Urdu for Hope
Khof: Urdu for terror
La Esperanza: Italian for hope
надежда: Russian for hope
l’ espoir: Spanish for hope
hoffnung: Russian for hope
