4. Dark [100 poems challenge]

4.          Dark

I know cloudy days
And momentary gloom;
Drifts of foggy haze
Where faint shadows loom;
But I do not know
The advancing grim,
Its relentless flow
As all light grows dim;
When a pitch black wall
Full surrounds the soul
And threatens a fall
Down an endless hole.
Where the brightest light
Shone by caring friend
Is consumed by night
And the world will end.
As this darkest threat
Smothers all before,
There’s a moment, yet,
When to cry “No more!”
Is beyond the power
And so all is still.

In that quiet hour
Can you find the will,
Strain to hear a sound,
Though bereft, alone,
Whispers echo round
Saying “You are known”.

 24-25 April 2013

Comments: When tackling yesterday’s poem on “Light” I decided to leap to one of the word’s less frequent meanings, and reference “weight” rather than “luminosity”, not realizing that the next topic was “Dark” and that there was potential for pairing. Oh well.

Some of the people who are very important in my life suffer from depression. I have occasional glum days but am blessed to be free of this illness. Like most whose moods are generally stable and who can usually “snap out of it” when they need to, I have never fully understood what depression is like and how best to help. I now know that perpetually perky* light-shining—of the well-intentioned kind offered by those of us who have strategies that work for our mild glums—is often completely ineffective. This poem is my attempt to begin to understand.

J.K. Rowling nouned “grim” for me; although, more correctly, she turned it into a proper noun, whereas I’ll claim credit for common nouning it. [I expect that I am not the first who has done the verbing of “noun” (and I think it was Bill Watterson with “Calvin and Hobbes” who verbed “verb”)].

* If you suffer from depression or know someone who does, you may find this article helpful (moderate language advisory)

Themes to come: 5. Seeking Solace; 6. Break Away; 7. Heaven; 8. Innocence; 9. Drive

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.