Shadows

Linda Bennett

Shadows

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

 

D.H. Lawrence

 

 "...then I shall know that I am walking still/ with God we are close together now.."

There are so many distractions and stresses, there always have been - coming in from in so many directions. These days I look for the constants, the things that don't change. I find so much comfort there. Like the speaker in this poem, I go to sleep at night committing my existence into the hands of the God I trust with everything. The God who remains Himself no matter what dark cloud I find myself under, no matter what I don't know and can't control. The God who knows me fully and loves me entirely and who is able (and willing) to re-create me, transform me, lift me up beyond cloud or circumstance. The God with whom all good things are possible. "

"New blossoms of me." for instance, 

"strange flowers such as my life has not brought forth before."

 

 

Under the Ice

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Under the Ice

Like Coleridge, I waltz

on ice. And watch my shadow 

on the water below. Knowing that

if the ice were not there

I'd drown. Half willing it.

In my cord jacket

and neat cravat, I keep

returning to the one spot.

How long, to cut

a perfect circle out?

Something in me

rejects the notion.

The arc is never complete.

My figures-of-eight

almost, not quite, meet.

Was Raeburn's skating parson

a man of God, poised

impeccably on the brink;

or his bland stare

no more than a decorous front?

If I could keep my cool

like that. Gazing straight ahead,

not at my feet. Giving

no sign of knowing

how deep the water, how thin the ice.

Behind that, the other

question: whether the real you

pirouettes in space

or beckons from under the ice

for me to come through.

Stewart Conn

Similar to my post of December 14, 2016 (The Midnight Skaters by Edmund Blunden), this skater is also acutely aware of how close Death is. He almost courts it - except he can't quite, he's a little too nervous, too superstitious perhaps. He wants to be more "cool", like the skating parson in the painting by Raeburn, but he's not sure that guy isn't posing, pretending not to care about the risks he's taking. The last stanza is the one that clinches it. He's not even sure if he's himself, or if the shadow skating on the other side of the ice is him. Is life is that precarious, that uncertain - it may end abruptly and without us knowing if we're even truly ourselves? God forbid. But what a wonderful way to pose the question.