It’s been a long day—come sit by the fire while I read to you.

Tags: [Boyfriend] [Reading You Poetry by the Fire] [SFW] [Cozy] [Comfort] [Showing Ourselves Grace] [Reassurance] [Calming] [Anti-Anxiety] [Inspiring Hope] [Feeding the Soul] [Cuddling] [Sleep Aid] [ASMR]

► Private script written by Viola Barden

Poems read include:

• “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson
• “Dreams” and “Dream Dust” by Langston Hughes
• “Sonnet 60” by William Shakespeare
• “Hokku” by Yone Noguchi
• “To Hope” by John Keats
• “Lullaby” by Louisa May Alcott

(All poems read are in the public domain)

Viola and I wanted to make an audio that could help offer some comfort, and perhaps inspire a bit of hope around the situation in the US right now. I know it gives me strength to read things like this. I hope it can give some to you too.

We will also be donating $1K to the Community Aid Network of Minnesota to support the work they're doing to provide for those in need amid the terror being inflicted in Minneapolis by ICE.

If you would also like to join us in donating or would like more information about CANMN, visit www.canmn.org

Additional resources/organizations in need of support can be found at www.standwithminnesota.com

And if I can, I'd like to offer one additional quote that always inspires me:

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien