Bright With Darkness: A Poem

There is no harvest, no ripeness

only gleanings from

bare ground

glimpses 

of what may be

The sweet and simple 

sleep of youth 

is gone 

has been gone for years 

gone with the dreams of wonder

I do not belong to myself

but to circumstances 

uncontrollable, unasked for

But what if I called? What if I stared 

into her face? Did I willingly 

turn to stone, choosing stagnation 

over life? 

Perhaps there are reasons why 

based not on reason, but a deeper 

knowing, beneath understanding—

a holy mystery

I chose this

A small pebble 

buried in the earth—

must I dig my way out?

I love the depths, and darkness 

and would rather dwell there 

Yet mountains call—peaks—

places of clear sight; 

perhaps a better vantage from which 

to see into the dark deep

After all 

the moon’s light is not her own

though she wears it as if illumined 

from within 

bright with darkness 

bridging both

Only in the third place can the mind merge 

the opposites

If I have a patch of dark 

bare earth 

below

and air and sunlight

above 

perhaps, in the place between

something will grow

(October 2017)

The Moon, by Adam Cebula (Source: Wikimedia Commons)