I Am Hope

Body bent and battered, limbs twisted under the weight of too many blows, the tree still stands. Still reaches its gnarled, gray bark upward toward the sun. Come springtime, newly sprouted twigs will stretch skyward, unfurling leaves in gilded light. “You thought your tempests could kill me. You were wrong.”

Cordelia Frances Biddle’s latest novel, They Believed They Were Safe, is available everywhere. cordeliafrancesbiddle.net