Poetry: Expect Nothing

by Alice Walker in Anything We Love Can be Saved: A Writer’s Activism.

And I ask myself: What can I give you for comfort on those bleak days to come—and they will—when you are wondering if “this” (whatever the limit is that you have reached) is all there is. I can give you this poem:

EXPECT NOTHING

Expect nothing. Live frugally
on surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress
Unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human giant
Exists at all.
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
on surprise.