...and never stops at all

When walking to my library there is a stretch without sidewalks, so you have to walk in the road. Today i spotted what looked like an interesting leaf from afar, but was actually a butterfly:

What are you doing in the road, Mr Butterfly?
It is dangerous out here.
Are you even alive?
There was a feeble wing flap as i took his picture and i spotted the tear in his wing. This butterfly was close to being an ex-butterfly, but i couldn't just leave him in the road to get squashed. As i picked him up, he went crazy with the flapping and thrashing, trying to escape. Even close to death, his will to live kicked in:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

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 chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

I have always loved this famous Emily Dickinson poem. Many times you only see the first stanza quoted, but it is the finale that clinches my heart - you don't have to give hope anything but a place to live.
Hope lives in my heart.
It is one of my defining characteristics.
Right now times are hard for some of the folks i love the most in this world, but i cling to my hope and try to foster it in their hearts as well.

A tear in his wing
and missing three legs,
but i had to move the butterfly
to this tree
to give him a shot
just in case
he might survive.


It is who i am.