The darkness exists;
it does not have to be imagined.
If I forget it,
it remains, a stain of shadow
under my feet,
at the nape of my neck,
leaking through my heart.
When we would lock the darkness
away from us with facsimiles of light,
we only feed its falseness.
Striking a match
on the wall of my flesh, I see,
after the pop and flare have dwindled,
after-images of my face
receding into night.
The darkness exists
and is more than our ignorance of light
and is more than the shadows cast
by our pride and fear.
Yet the true star is kindled,
a straight blaze of sun
before which darkness flees
and gathers itself
into its own shadow.
