Some questions follow a person long after war ends. In “Where Is Hope,” a Vietnam Naval chaplain reflects on faith, memory, and the quiet search for light in the darkness. This poem offers a moment to pause and listen to a voice shaped by service, loss, and enduring compassion.
Where Is Hope?
I live where there is ICE
not a frozen water, but people
who come into houses masked and no ID, taking people away,
they say they are not real citizens or people,
Where is the hope?
We remember a Saturday, sometime go,
when we celebrated 50 years since we left Vietnam, a lost cause,
many say.
Where is the hope?
Yes, I live in a waring time, there are so many others,
Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, so many more,
where are the flowers? the hope?
My wife brings some flowers from the store,
they seem to brighten the room and our lives.
but where is the hope?
My spiritual practice, encourages me,
but where is the hope? It’s in the wind, the sun, the moon and
the stars, and I am told in my heart there is hope!
Oh, that WE can remember and touch the hope we already have.
Published originally in Musings and Poems by Bob koshin Hanson, December 2025
Published here with permission of the author.
Bob koshin Hanson is a retired Lutheran clergy and a U.S. Navy veteran. He has been writing poetry seriously since his retirement in 2007, and has served as a facilitator for Warrior Writer workshops since 2019. He has seven books available on Amazon, including the most recent, “Musings and Poems.” He is a father, grandfather, and an active member of Veterans for Peace Chapter 102 in Milwaukee, WI.