Thursday 1 September 2011

The Dark Light Shines

In the night the dark light shines,
deep within the shadows.
In the dimness softly glows,
the heart of all believing.

Cold my brain and dim my eyes
and yet I grope on, hoping
(despite my fears and anger hard
and desperation growing)
that it is there, and solace gives;
gainsaying all appearance.

I come upon the deep abyss
of hate and pain and sorrow
where love is lost and swallowed up
in fulgin eve that vastly falls
to spite all word of morrow.

I drink my fill the brook of loss
that plunges there in torrent
down cruel rocks that know no joy
but battered are by years of bloody woe.
My thirst assuaged, I risk the sight
gained at the chasm’s brink.

I stare into the dark of death: the end of being fell.
I feel it steel into my soul and recognise it full well
for what has always present been amidst my tawdry hopes;
the lie to all my vanities, the cusp of all conceits,
the worm that gnaws my heart away:
the knowledge of mortality.
I long to fly the deep descent
which offers me release
from suffering and hate,
to embrace the arms of hostile rock
and shatter in their urgent grasp:
to spend my life in one last spill of blood;
but at the edge
some unsought instinct speaks,
an unseen hand does stay my step,
and I pull back.

But I am lost, I have no guide
to tend my way or point me right.
As I advance the choice repeats
again and again, without release,
’twixt life and death, ’twixt good and ill.

But why chose life, when life itself is ill
and offers naught but pain
and prospect more of same?
Surely ’tis better to be dead
and put an end to doubt and dread
if life itself’s a living death!
But still ’tis life I choose,
though it is fraught with woe;
for one thing’s clear:
that if I once choose death
there will be no ’morrow
in which to make another choice;
no chance to regret any choice,
no chance to grow,
not even chance to know
the pain of loss and of sorrow.

While there’s life there’s room for hope,
even if that hope be false;
and, though false hope is foul
and ne’re to be desired
(a spectre which despises life
yet offers what it hates)
still, life will always demand hope
and hope will promise life
in everlasting play
and dance reciprocal.

Perforce, I live in hope;
and, though I may in despair die,
I can not help but hope
or else, e’en now, I die.
Far in the West, I glimpse the end
of all my paths and choices.

No matter if I soon find joy
in little things of hearth and home,
or greater things of art and skill,
or greatest things of wisdom’s kin,
or even love that thrills my soul
and my whole heart does win;
still I shall die
and all my enterprise shall come to naught.

All I hold dear shall be undone
my fine conceits be futile shown.
So what for hope and life?
This life is dying as it lives: it is not e’en itself!
The law of identity it denies
and can’t keep faith with its own name!
Its hope leads surely to the clammy grave:
and so is shown most truly false!

Still, in the night the dark light shines,
deep within the shadows.
In the dimness softly glows,
the heart of all believing.

Cold my brain and dim my eyes
and yet I grope on, hoping
(despite my fears and anger hard
and desperation growing)
that it is there, and solace gives;
gainsaying all appearance.