From Darkness to Light

Did your eyes involuntarily roll when you saw the post title? That phrase nets over a million+ hits on an exact-phrase basic internet search. Music, book titles, poetry, child abuse prevention organizations, you name it; I guess everybody loves a good evocative image.

There's a reason for that. The words ring true. They chime, deep inside somewhere where our souls resonate with the music of the spheres.

Also, marketing.

It's solstice night, and that means my lights are lit against the cold night, and the candle fire will burn until dawn when the sun returns to announce that the heavenly dance is once again swinging around to once again bestow on us longer days and shorter nights.

Yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes. I rolled mine even while I was writing it. How can we not scoff Poetry is raw and awkward except when it really, really works. Words and ideas are a rough fit at the best of times, even in the most talented of hands. Mine aren't so talente. I don't care. I'm going to keep working at the clay of language and make my little thumb pots and share them with anyone who doesn't run away fast enough.

Somewhere along the line our culture began to leave the harmonizing to the choir instead of raising our own voices in celebration or mourning. Somewhere along the line we have become convinced that nothing but the best is good enough to respect.

That's a shame and a loss and a crime against the human spirit.

I stopped going to church when the congregation stopped singing. Now I sing in the car and at home and in the yard, even when the neighbors are listening. Songs are meant to be sung, even off-key and slightly hoarse.

When I look at the flickering light, and my heart listens to the stillness of the dark, I feel. When I create, I bring something into being that never existed before then, and I wouldn't trade that glory for anything in the world.

I will sing and write and shout myself to the whole universe.