Wednesday, January 03, 2007

i yield.

darkness comes again, i hear his footsteps in the hall. letting himself in, damn it, he made a key. has access, entry. how can i bar the door, it's too late now. he is here. he is here.

have you ever been in darkness so dark it becomes light around you? perhaps it is the music, perhaps it is many things i do. perhaps it is just how it is. he will come at will and i can receive him or try to hide. i've spent most of my life trying to hide. to run away from him. trying to manufacture light.

but darkness settles in and it won't obey our commands. or wishes. it does not come and go at our request. it merely is. like so much of life. an experience, to live through.

that i could find myself here so suddenly, surprises me. i don't know why. it is familiar territory. i know the signs now. it would have taken me days to figure out why the funk i was in had lasted so long. now, i yield to it. go down with it. and bounce back relatively quickly.

the day dawned with such promise. i had a poem. i overstepped my prayers with pressing demands, and this reminds me why i pray. why i set prayer as a priority. because when i don't (even when i do), darkness comes and i have not sharpened my sword or tested my steel. i'm caught, arms down, in a stranglehold i haven't the strength or will to escape.

but yielding does produce some fruit. going limp often surprises attackers, my sensei once taught this technique for extracting oneself from the grasp of someone who has taken you from behind. i see it in my mind. i hear the kiai. i could fight. and be free.

but i won't.

today, i'll go where darkness leads, and see what happens there. whom i happen to meet. and hope, will be tomorrow's fruit. and feast. today i yield.

3 comments:

Miss Audrey said...

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/the+sound+of+silence_20124712.html

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
A neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said i,you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisperd in the sounds of silence.

This song has been wandering around in my mind for days. Mostly, "Hello darkness my old friend"

I only contemplate it lightly though. When darkness falls upon me I tend to run to the light.

siouxsiepoet said...

that would seem to be the right course of action. i've never taken the right courses though.

i met a widow in my darkness, draped in black. she lost her husband, wwII vet, red. after i wrote that bit, i went to my chapel and learned of his passing.

sometimes, being willing, is all it takes. i don't understand it. and the darkness did not remain. something about standing and facing a thing. makes the thing turn tail and run.

Miss Audrey said...

Ah yes, I call that facing my mountain. That I do when I can name my foe - but with darkness and oppression I am not so brave.

I guess maybe because I was once so swallowed up with darkness that it almost destroyed me. When it surrounds me, and yes, it sometimes does, then I don't know if I react with fear or desperation or mere self-preservation, but whatever it is, I'm not standing and yielding.

You remind me of the ocean floor Suz. You are so willing to go to the depths of yourself to find what hidden treasures await you there while so many of us are only willing to explore the surface or at best the clear, shallow waters of the not always welcome unknown.

I don't know if I will ever get there, but you make me wanna be brave.

And then to yield to the darkness and find that it is exactly what one of your fellow parishoners is having to walk through with the death of her mate - so sad but fitting. I'm glad to know that you were on her plane of comprehension. Death, yes, death is dark.