Deep into the Darkness Peering
A Poem
‘Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore;’
(Edgar Allan Poe)
Once upon a winter day-set, while I sat staring, warm and wasting
Cooried in by that well-worn hearth, the flames the same as the day before
While my brain fell quiet, eyes glazing, suddenly there came a hissing
As though somewhere near a creature were lurking, twisting, writhing
Outside the door. “Tis but the fire”, I decided, “but water to gas, hissing
In the flames, nothing more than that, nothing more, nothing more
Haunting the dark of the night”.
The light had fallen from the world in those bleak December days
The sun at its peak painted only in greys and blacks.
Eagerly I turned inwards — eagerly I sought to burrow
In flickering images of days gone past and find in the morrow —
In that resplendent, light-filled, furious morrow — their glorious
Technicolour return, and forget — forget all sorrow, forget for once
All the days that I mourned.
But with the hissing came a whistle, the glass of the window thrummed
And the curtains shifted, and somewhere there was a scrape and rumble
So that I could not tell myself anymore, not with my heart beating,
Not with the ringing in my veins, not with something clawing at window
And at door: “Tis but a storm approaching, a slate caught loose,
A door unlatched, nothing more than that, nothing more,
Nothing more in the darkened night”.
Tales of the past I remembered, of stone caskets buried of child-like size
Strewn with iron; of women wandering, moon-like in a pitch-dark night;
Of captains drowned, their feet tied & weighted, only their hat remaining;
And in remembering thought I heard a thousand things,
A din of the departed, a cacophony of voices shrieking and crying,
And could scarce find my own to whisper: “It’s the wind, it’s the wind.
The sea is rising and so comes the wind, just the wind, just the wind
Stirring the black of night”.
Long I stood, still, quiet, barely breathing, wondering, listening, fearing, Doubting my ears, doubting the darkness as outside the world thundered
And inside flames fluttered, wood creaked and groaned and shuddered
Until doubt grew beyond bearing and nerves pushed forward into motion
And with gentle tread I stole forward to the door and with a lurch of spirit
Still clutched in purse, I opened wide the door, flung open my arms
And into the darkness started.
Black pitched against black, the world was in tumult, as air thrashed air
And a strife invisible lashed my skin, froze my breath and pulled my hair,
Bent my body and strove to thieve the ground from under my very feet,
And I resisting, clinging to the threshold, yet still felt something thrill
Within me, felt something reckless, something like joy, rise and swell
Within my breast and call me forth, to let the ground be taken, let my feet
Rise from the treaded earth, my body lift upwards, soul soaring,
And be swallowed by the darkened night.
The rowans at the door, planted to ward and protect and guide,
Grown in sorrowful memory, twinned in remembrance of babes long lost,
Branches jousting with the wind, they shook violently as they thrust from Side to side, a flag of warning, plain as could be: stay where it is still
and warm, keep your feet upon the ground, do not cross the door.
And for a moment, I hesitated. But then I felt the lingering warmth
Of the fire, its lethargy spilling once more into my soul and hastily, Recklessly, savagely I tore myself from the door and threw myself
Into that dark tumultuous night.
Somewhen later I found myself, battered and torn, kneeling upon the shore
Limbs cold and weary, skin slapped, and yet blood singing, heart pounding,
A spray-soaked waif at the edge of a precipice, staring into the black,
Seeking the eye of the heaving, bulging ebony sea. Seeking something,
Seeking a word, seeking an answer, an absolution, a revelation, a return.
Seeking in blindness and the dark what cannot be seen in the light,
In the whistle and spit and black of reckless night.
