The Dark

 

To Know the Dark
by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Following Susan's contemplation of the light,  I thought we might turn to light's opposite.
As we anticipate the coming of the light in spring, it seems a fine time to consider what we learned in the depth of winter. 

Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote: "The most important thing you can do to nourish your creative life is to reach into dark places." Not just the dark times and circumstances we encounter in our lives, but our subconscious, a rich bed of material to draw from in our writing.

Have you had the opportunity to know the dark, the "dark feet and dark wings" that travel there?

What gifts have you found in dark places? What "blooms and sings" there?

Have you carried light into those dark places? How has shining that light changed them?

Or you might choose to write about darkness itself, when the sun has sunk below the horizon and night covers the earth.

Our hearts yearning towards spring and light and new growth, let's contemplate the dark and see what poems emerge. 

We have till Sunday night. Please remember to check back for late linkers.

Moonset

Leaves of poplars pick Japanese prints against the west.

Moon sand on the canal doubles the changing pictures.

The moon’s good-by ends pictures.

The west is empty. All else is empty. No moon-talk at all now.

Only dark listening to dark.

~ Carl Sandburg

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The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

~ Mary Oliver

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We Grow Accustomed to the Dark

We grow accustomed to the Dark -

When Light is put away -

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Good bye -

A Moment - We Uncertain step

For newness of the night -

Then - fit our Vision to the Dark -

And meet the Road - erect -

And so of larger - Darknesses -

Those Evenings of the Brain -

When not a Moon disclose a sign -

Or Star - come out - within -

The Bravest - grope a little -

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead -

But as they learn to see -

Either the Darkness alters -

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight -

And Life steps almost straight.

~Emily Dickinson

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