the real meaning of darkness
Sep. 25th, 2010 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aliaspseudonymI have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
-Robert Frost
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
-Robert Frost
It is dark. The moon is nearly full. I didn't know that before I set out. Maybe it called to me.
I am a ways from home and I intend to go much further. Nobody knows where I am, and I have left my phone behind. There's no way in the world of finding or contacting me now. I am as alone as it is possible to be, in this city.
I walk slowly, quietly, pausing often to stare at the sky, or the streetlights, or the moon, or the city sprawled out below me. Everything is so beautiful. The darkness is so deep, so clean; it washes away all colour except the deep blue sky and the orange streetlights. It cleanses me. The rest of the world seems distant, irrelevant. Everything that matters is right here, right now, in the dance of long shadows in flickering streetlights, in the sound of feet on the uneven road.
I forge onward. Darkness draws me; I want to get away from these streetlights and their stolen starlight, into the deeper dark. I have left the suburb proper now. These houses are unfinished; bare wood skeletons, light grey against the deep purple overhead. Nobody lives here yet. Nobody comes here, this late at night -- the dog walkers and exercisers have gone home. There's not a human being for miles in all directions. A jackrabbit flees at my passing.
The lights fade behind me. Here the road is rough and unkempt, the streetlights entirely absent. From the light it looks pitch black, but darkness always looks darker from the light. Once I enter, I can make out the path, the trees, the unfinished houses. I continue, slowly as before, watching my step lest a pothole trip me in the dark.
Well out of reach of the streetlights, beyond everything, I stop. I sit on a little stump by the side of the road and watch the clouds drift in front of the moon. Here, alone and far from home and cloaked in utter darkness, I feel perfectly calm, perfectly peaceful, perfectly safe. Why do people say 'black as night,' 'black as midnight?' They should come here. They would learn that the night is never truly black. It is orange and red and purple and all speckled with stars, and tinged with glorious silver-grey moonlight. It is beautiful.
I rise, reluctantly, to my feet. There's a fair way yet to go before I must return to the light. I turn. I cast a long, dark shadow in the pale moonlight. I smile and follow my shadow. Where will it take me tonight?
I am a ways from home and I intend to go much further. Nobody knows where I am, and I have left my phone behind. There's no way in the world of finding or contacting me now. I am as alone as it is possible to be, in this city.
I walk slowly, quietly, pausing often to stare at the sky, or the streetlights, or the moon, or the city sprawled out below me. Everything is so beautiful. The darkness is so deep, so clean; it washes away all colour except the deep blue sky and the orange streetlights. It cleanses me. The rest of the world seems distant, irrelevant. Everything that matters is right here, right now, in the dance of long shadows in flickering streetlights, in the sound of feet on the uneven road.
I forge onward. Darkness draws me; I want to get away from these streetlights and their stolen starlight, into the deeper dark. I have left the suburb proper now. These houses are unfinished; bare wood skeletons, light grey against the deep purple overhead. Nobody lives here yet. Nobody comes here, this late at night -- the dog walkers and exercisers have gone home. There's not a human being for miles in all directions. A jackrabbit flees at my passing.
The lights fade behind me. Here the road is rough and unkempt, the streetlights entirely absent. From the light it looks pitch black, but darkness always looks darker from the light. Once I enter, I can make out the path, the trees, the unfinished houses. I continue, slowly as before, watching my step lest a pothole trip me in the dark.
Well out of reach of the streetlights, beyond everything, I stop. I sit on a little stump by the side of the road and watch the clouds drift in front of the moon. Here, alone and far from home and cloaked in utter darkness, I feel perfectly calm, perfectly peaceful, perfectly safe. Why do people say 'black as night,' 'black as midnight?' They should come here. They would learn that the night is never truly black. It is orange and red and purple and all speckled with stars, and tinged with glorious silver-grey moonlight. It is beautiful.
I rise, reluctantly, to my feet. There's a fair way yet to go before I must return to the light. I turn. I cast a long, dark shadow in the pale moonlight. I smile and follow my shadow. Where will it take me tonight?
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Date: 2010-09-26 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 07:13 pm (UTC)