These prompts just keep being generative for me! Thank you! As a person prone to introspection, rest, and also migraines, I often joke that I crave darkness - I keep a lot of lights off at home. Accordingly, I tend to dislike the various bright, consumerist lights of our world, which paradoxically seem to increase around the wintertime r…
These prompts just keep being generative for me! Thank you! As a person prone to introspection, rest, and also migraines, I often joke that I crave darkness - I keep a lot of lights off at home. Accordingly, I tend to dislike the various bright, consumerist lights of our world, which paradoxically seem to increase around the wintertime rather than matching the season. This poem is my attempt at thinking through the kinds of light I like or trust, while rejecting our culture's imbalanced obsession with endless razzle-dazzle.
Light’s Leaving
Light, like any god-force
able to give or rescind life,
turns ill in excess.
Late December sun parades,
drunk in his coming of age.
From his blue podium he blasts
the snow so bright it bleaches sight,
drums the brain. The cell phone store
fluoresces all night, offering knowledge,
sending forth its thousand radiant
children to be yours: to hold
in your hands, at your hip, to greet
each morning. It’ll carry messages,
tirelessly, to and from your beloveds
in the language of lightning and stars.
But circadian sleep and subtlety aren’t
its instinct: these you must hold closer.
The restless sponsored ads and capitalist
aisles hawk their electric, promised bodies:
how much brighter and flatter you could be.
They’ve spent all autumn denying autumn.
Darkness is what has kept our bodies
unburnt, inscrutable.
I trust only light that has known its own lack.
The bonfire, more than the searching siren.
The candle raised, a resistant fist.
The sun will now slouch towards summer.
It’ll sprawl across yards like a lover on a bed.
We’ll dance, leaf-dappled. And then,
as all of us do, the light will die. You must let it.
This is stunning and so resonant! I have long Covid (resulting in POTS, MCAS, and ME/CFS), and so there are days when light - especially unnatural light - is just more than I can handle.
I too take issue with these consumer lights. The excess in general that creates light pollution. I too like to sit and be in the dark. The natural light, so precious. This was a beautiful and evocative poem. Love the last line, " And then, as all of us do, the light will die. You must let it.
Becca, this is a deeply moving and tremendously beautiful poem. You bring such depth, insight and passion to your poems. Your intro resonates for sure--how we, perhaps out of our tendency to excess, have made the light something searing and eye averting, deeply harmful to our brains and sensory systems. Or perhaps that is the artifical light we create, never able to replicate what the cosmos can provide on its own. Your petry touches my heart and spirit, and I am grateful for each word you share.
These prompts just keep being generative for me! Thank you! As a person prone to introspection, rest, and also migraines, I often joke that I crave darkness - I keep a lot of lights off at home. Accordingly, I tend to dislike the various bright, consumerist lights of our world, which paradoxically seem to increase around the wintertime rather than matching the season. This poem is my attempt at thinking through the kinds of light I like or trust, while rejecting our culture's imbalanced obsession with endless razzle-dazzle.
Light’s Leaving
Light, like any god-force
able to give or rescind life,
turns ill in excess.
Late December sun parades,
drunk in his coming of age.
From his blue podium he blasts
the snow so bright it bleaches sight,
drums the brain. The cell phone store
fluoresces all night, offering knowledge,
sending forth its thousand radiant
children to be yours: to hold
in your hands, at your hip, to greet
each morning. It’ll carry messages,
tirelessly, to and from your beloveds
in the language of lightning and stars.
But circadian sleep and subtlety aren’t
its instinct: these you must hold closer.
The restless sponsored ads and capitalist
aisles hawk their electric, promised bodies:
how much brighter and flatter you could be.
They’ve spent all autumn denying autumn.
Darkness is what has kept our bodies
unburnt, inscrutable.
I trust only light that has known its own lack.
The bonfire, more than the searching siren.
The candle raised, a resistant fist.
The sun will now slouch towards summer.
It’ll sprawl across yards like a lover on a bed.
We’ll dance, leaf-dappled. And then,
as all of us do, the light will die. You must let it.
Its leaving reveals the work we have left to do.
This is stunning and so resonant! I have long Covid (resulting in POTS, MCAS, and ME/CFS), and so there are days when light - especially unnatural light - is just more than I can handle.
I appreciate you sharing and reflecting back your own experience Lisa 🤎 that is a heavy load to carry so I am sending you solidarity and care
Thank you so much, Becca! 💜
I too take issue with these consumer lights. The excess in general that creates light pollution. I too like to sit and be in the dark. The natural light, so precious. This was a beautiful and evocative poem. Love the last line, " And then, as all of us do, the light will die. You must let it.
Its leaving reveals the work we have left to do."
Becca, this is a deeply moving and tremendously beautiful poem. You bring such depth, insight and passion to your poems. Your intro resonates for sure--how we, perhaps out of our tendency to excess, have made the light something searing and eye averting, deeply harmful to our brains and sensory systems. Or perhaps that is the artifical light we create, never able to replicate what the cosmos can provide on its own. Your petry touches my heart and spirit, and I am grateful for each word you share.
Thank you for the generous words and care!
You are very welcome.