And that this place may thoroughly be thought
True paradise, I have the serpent bought.
John Donne
I carry darkness with me to the brightest day, when,
falling from my careful grasp,
it tumbles – careful and complete –
into the moments of the earliest hour.
This small dark fragment is not something that I know I hold;
it curls between my fingers – this bead of almost amber –
bearing a tiny grain of sorrow within its warmed shell.
I know that, as I rest, it will seek again my sleep-numbed fingers
and nestle there. They will close upon it easy as upon a thought
so that I – unknowing – stretching into the day to greet the morning,
I will hold it once again
and I will let it fall.
liked opening line I carry darkness with me to the brightest day …
Thank you! Sometimes – if a poem is going to take me in hand and carry me through the creative process – I’ll find a strong first line that echoes so strongly inside my head; then I have to chase it to the conclusion – and a poem is written!
Economically realized portrait of solitude. I like the workmanlike resignation to live with darkness suggested in the poem. Well done!
Thank you, Mel! You’ve caught the essence of what I wanted to achieve. I can be terribly prone to flowery language at times (which drives me demented: I call it death by adjective) so I wanted to cut this right back. What matters is the darkness we carry with us – darkness that we tip into the brightest of days.