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."

 

 

Night Sounds

Brent Cotton

Night Sounds


And now the dark comes on, all full of chitter noise.

Birds huggermugger crowd the trees,

the air thick with their vesper cries,

and bats, snub seven-pointed kites,

skitter across the lake, swing out,

squeak, chirp, dip, and skim on skates

of air, and the fat frogs wake and prink

wide-lipped, noisy as ducks, drunk

on the bloozy black, gloating chink-chunk.



And now on the narrow beach we defend ourselves from  dark.

The cooking done, we build our firework

bright and hot and less for outlook

than for magic, and lie in our blankets

while night nickers around us. Crickets

chorus hallelujahs; paws, quiet

and quick as raindrops, play on the stones

expertly soft, run past and are gone;

fish pulse in the lake; the frogs hoarsen.



Now every voice of the hour -- the known,

the supposed, the strange,

the mindless, the witted, the never seen --

sing, thrum, impinge, and rearrange

endlessly; and debarred from sleep we wait

for the birds, importantly silent,

for the crease of first eye-licking light,

for the sun, lost long ago and sweet.

By the lake, locked black away and tight,

we lie, day creatures, overhearing night.



Maxine Kumin

“And now the dark comes on”, a change takes place, mysterious nocturnal creatures invade our once familiar daylight world.  Kumin prefaces each stage with "and now", "and now", "now". It's as if we are the audience for a performance of  the night orchestra. Under cover of darkness it sings, thrums, nickers, chirps, squeaks, prinks  - and every hour has a voice, a part in the chorus. Notice how the people build their fire "less for outlook than for magic", I love that. Isn't that what we build fires for mostly while camping, or evenings in the back yard - sure, we need warmth and food and light, but we also need magic. This poem reminds me of the drama of darkness, how it gives us mystery and music and a sense of familiar things becoming strange, of the known changing form and becoming new. Sometimes we don't recognize the wonder in front of us until we observe it from a different point of view. Sometimes we need the dark to show us what we have never seen.

What the Light Teaches

Steven Outram

What the Light Teaches

Language is the house with lamplight in its windows,

visible across fields. Approaching, you can hear

music; closer, smell

soup, bay leaves, bread - a meal for anyone

who has only his tongue left.

It's a country; home, family;

abandoned, burned down; whole lines dead, unmarried.

For those who can't read their way in the streets,

or in the gestures and faces of strangers,

language is the house to run to;

in wild nights, chased by dogs and other sounds,

when you've been lost a long time,

when you have no other place.

There are nights in the forest of words

when I panic, every step into thicker darkness,

the only way out to write myself into a clearing,

which is silence.

Nights in the forest of words

when I'm afraid we won't hear each other

over clattering branches, over

both our voices calling.

In winter, in the hour

when the sun runs liquid then freezes,

caught in the mantilla of empty trees;

when my heart listens

through the cold stethoscope of fear,

your voice in my head reminds me

what the light teaches.

Slowly you translate fear into love,

the way the moon's blood is the sea.

Anne Michaels

This is one of my favorite images - light from a distant window. If you’ve ever been out for a long walk at night when the air turns chill, you’ll know that nothing can make you feel more lonesome or full of longing than the light of a home window. It can be either the anticipation of warmth and welcome, or the cruel reminder that you are outside.  I absolutely love the line, “Language is the house with lamplight in its windows, visible across fields.” I have to pause and think. Is she saying that language is the hope of warmth and belonging, the invitation to relationships, to shelter? “Language is the house to run to.” How interesting. Until this poem, I had not thought of it like that. Writing, speech, language, can be a place to find yourself when you’ve been lost. It’s true, isn’t it? “Slowly you translate fear into love.” And isn’t that exactly what we’re attempting? To write out (or speak out) the darkness, the lostness, the loneliness – to work our way Home? Is Language that magic? Can words do all that?