Photo: cc by RVWithTito
Seeing In The Dark
BY MAGAZINE COLUMNIST CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG
Barn’s burnt down
now
I can see the moon
- Masahide, 1657-1723
After the fire, where next to turn?
Not the old words, aged with bitterness
or despair. Not habitual angers and griefs.
Not just a reflection of anyone’s new ideas.
But what’s right here: wind rising
through a tower of cottonwood.
Cicadas motoring their 17 year song.
Golden moon half revealed by
the silver of the passing cloud.
Good things, bad things happen.
News dissolves our vision of the world.
Not to say what’s lost doesn’t make us ache
or strip our days of reds so vibrant
we forget what we were thinking.
But whatever is lost also brings us to this window
composed of the lush darkness, the rush
of wind or rain through the leaves,
the sudden chill dissolving the hot
anger or anguish, the pain of the questions that,
left unanswered, might divide us.
The music of the old house outlives the house.
We will make new murals out of the ruins,
mosaics from all that’s broken, stone soup
at the center of our next feast.
Nothing in this world vanishes.
Even ghosts, loved enough, turn into angels.
The dark shows us what calls
not at the edge of what we sense
but from the center of where we live.
Nothing can take away the power of the real.
Writing Prompt
After reading this poem, consider something or someone you lost, and write your own seeing-in-the-dark tribute to this person, part of you, event, work or other loss. Or take the line, “Even ghosts, loved enough, turn into angels,” and write what that might mean to you or how it might happen.
Beginning a writing practice? Getting started, groundrules to free you, and podcasts of other writing prompts. Visit Caryn’s Write From Your Life page (http://carynmirriamgoldberg.wordpress.com/write-from-your-life/)
We may publish any content, comments or ideas sent to us.
Name may be withheld by request.
© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.
