Darkness slips silent, tight to the ground
On velvet paws
A cat
Is absorbed into the shadows
Of an ebony hedge
Which rustles
And is loosed
Into the dark air
In rough-winged flight
A crow
Rises
Where
Murky clouds cluster
In a brutish sky
Darkness
Flitting before me
Above me
And beyond me
Sometimes the darkness stays
© Anne McMaster 2016
Beautiful dark imagery and pacing. If I close my eyes and I can feel the air… Your word choice is so so absolutely on target.
Thank you so much! I’d been walking outside one night and a cat rustled out of the darkness. For some reason it stuck with me and I wanted to catch the idea of something moving across the ground to the hedge and then up into the darkness of the night. I still think I need to tweak it a bit, but I’m really glad you caught the meaning of the piece!
“Murky clouds cluster in a brutish sky.” I love how these words merge together to make a beautiful sound. I’m sure there’s a poetic term for that, but I don’t know it in English. Love your poem, Anne. 💓😃
Martina – thank you so much! I know – as a creative person – that darkness travels within us at times: I wanted to catch the notion of it being everywhere: crawling across the ground, taking shape in the figures of the cat and the crow (both black, of course!) and then rising into an unwelcoming sky. It can be inside us and around us. I didn’t choose too many literary terms to follow to be honest 🙂 I just wrote what I saw, you know? I really appreciate your feedback – thank you!
I love your description…such great use of description and metaphor. Your poetry is ever so vivid. I love the line” Darkness slips silent, tight to the ground”. This is so descriptive and makes me think of so many sunsets where there was a little bit of light in the sky and then it was gone…light someone had pulled down the blind on the sky
and “pulled it tight to the ground. I loved your use of simile too…musical, dark-wonderful!
Ingrid, thank you so much! I wanted to catch the idea of the passage of darkness from the ground right up to the sky. As I mentioned in a post, I know that those of us who are creatives tend to have darkness within us at times; I wanted to move it physically through the environment too!
Oops…I meant to say that I loved your use of alliteration (not simile.) “Darkness “slips silent”-beautiful! It adds movement and suspense-wonderful!
Lol – I’m still delighted with your kind feedback: thank you, Ingrid!
The technique of moving from one section to another at hinges-cat, bird- moves the cadence and urgency in a sense of mass moving rather that anything as brittle as rhythm. Fluid.
Last line as troubling and satisfying as a last line of a haiku.
Paul – thank you for your feedback on this poem. Yes – everything leads to the last line. Those of us who are creatives tend to have darkness within us; I wanted to translate that into the natural world and give a sense of darkness moving from ground level – through various dark animals – to the unwelcoming dark sky. Some days this is all there is, you know?