10/06/2016
Writing in the Dark
It's not difficult.
Anyway, it's necessary.
Wait til morning, and you'll forget.
And who knows if morning will come.
Fumble for the light,
and you'll be
stark awake, but the vision
will be fading, slipping,
out of reach.
You must have paper at hand,
a felt-tip pen, ballpoints don't always flow,
pencil points tend to break. There's nothing
shameful in that much prudence: those are our tools.
Never mind about crossing your t's, dotting your i's--
but take care not to cover
one word with the next. Practice will reveal
how one hand instinctively comes to the aid of another
to keep each line
clear of the next.
Keep writing in the dark:
a record of the night, or
words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing,
words that flew through your mind, strange birds
crying their urgency with human voices,
or opened
as flowers of a tree that blooms
only once in a lifetime:
words that may have the power
to make the sun rise again.
--Denise Levertov
