As the calendar slides into 2026, champagne bubbles rise, resolutions scatter like confetti, and hope hums beneath it all.

This poem reminds us that even in graves, barbershops and bars, hope insists on sitting beside us at the start of a new year.

The Grave Digger’s Hope

The grave digger, Jaber, who moonlights
as a barber and sometimes pours drinks at O’Malley’s,
in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone,
has decided that hope is the only thing worth talking about.

At the cemetery, he leans on his shovel,
boots crunching gravel,
and tells the widow that hope was the last thing in Pandora’s jar. 

“Not a box,” he says,
“a jar, like the one your grandmother kept pickles in.”
Out flew sickness, envy, greed, lies, despair,
a whole flock of bad-tempered birds. 

Only hope stayed behind,
like the last dill pickle at the bottom,
waiting for someone brave enough to taste it. 

The widow nods,
though she is not sure what pickles have to do with eternity.

At the barbershop, he clips away at a teenager’s hair,
saying hope is like a haircut — you never know if it will turn out the way you imagined.
Sometimes it’s a masterpiece,
sometimes it’s the crooked bowl cut your mother notices first,
but either way, you walk out carrying it on your head.

At the bar, he slides a local beer across the counter,
foam fizzing and collapsing,
and tells a man who has lost his job
that hope is foam — a crown that vanishes,
leaving the bitter truth beneath.

The man laughs,
orders another, and drinks the flat stuff anyway.

By closing time,
the grave digger/barber/bartender has carried hope
around like a pocketful of loose change,
jingling it in every conversation,
dropping it on the counter,
forgetting it in the laundry.

And when he locks the door,
he thinks of Pandora, her hands trembling on the lid,
and wonders if hope was meant to be a gift or a prank — like a rubber snake in a peanut can.

Either way,
he knows tomorrow someone will sit in his chair,
or lean across his bar, or stand beside a grave,
and ask him again about hope.

And he will answer,
with the patience of a man who has three jobs:
Hope is a jar.
Hope is a haircut.
Hope is foam.
Hope is loose change.
Hope is what keeps us talking,
when the jar is empty,
the beer flat,
the haircut crooked,
and tomorrow still waiting at the door.

Let us hope for 2026.

Santa Barbara resident Jay Casbon has devoted his professional journey to higher education, leadership and religious art history. He has served in distinguished academic roles, including provost at Oregon State University, graduate school dean at Lewis & Clark College, and a professor of education and counseling psychology. Jay is the author of several books, and most recently the co-author of Side by Side: The Sacred Art of Couples Aging with Wisdom & Love. He finds joy and clarity in writing poetry, restoring vintage watches, and collecting art that speaks to the soul. The opinions expressed are his own.