DARK TILL MARCH: POEM.

It is dark;

the next time we see the light

it will be nearly Paddy’s Day.                  

The cave of winter

is solid and without cracks;

the dark has a physical substance

that you can almost hold;

I feel sure that I could go outside

with a bottle and put some in,

ready to take to a far off place

that needs a little darkness,

somewhere baking under

oppressive sunlight.

The dark is a blanket that covers,

it is a barrier that keeps stuff out,

a lid that closes us in.

Light is the thing that exists -

in waves and particles and rays and shafts -

and darkness is just light’s absence, 

but sometimes,

deep in the cavern that is the Irish winter,

the dark is the only thing that really is.

Light is the aberration and its opposite

is the natural order of things.

The dark does not care about us;

it is vast, like the ocean,

and just as full of contempt for

all of our mess and hassle and

lack of light. The dark is a

creature that does not eat and does

not breathe, but which occupies space like

a malevolent gas. The dark has

no tentacles, but it feels like it does. 

The dark covers and hides

and blankets the world in negative space, 

like anti-matter, a creeping vacuum. 

The dark is a negation,

an absence, a nothingness that

sucks the vibrant hope from the world. 

The dark does not hate us; 

it is worse, it does not care if we exist. 

Our wounds and cravings

and loss do not matter to

its fixed, merciless expanse.

I hang on, and wait

for March.