Poets teach us that darkness is a gift
It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things. -Stephen Mallarme
This one is for Trudy.
Before you read today’s poem, I want you to do something for me. I want you to find a small box in your house or office, something with a lid. Perhaps even something you love–a trinket made by a child or given to you by your grandmother or that you bought in Sri Lanka that time you went to Pita Kotte. Or a shoe box or the little plastic container that strawberries come in. All are equally valid and good and right. I’ll wait right here while you find it. I’ll even wait while you eat all the strawberries so you can use their box.
Now that you have the box, I want you to write one word on a tiny slip of paper. That word is Trudy.
I want you to fold up that tiny slip of paper and put it in your box with a prayer, a mojo, a lighting of a candle, a dance, a bite from a Twinkie, whatever you do to make wishes come true, do it. Every day for a month at 9:00 a.m. wherever you are, if you don’t mind, take out Trudy’s name and read it silently to yourself, moving your lips as you read. Then tuck it away again. We’re going to will this woman healthy again, yes we are. And we can do it. You know we can.
Thanks to my friend Jodi for introducing me to the concept of a god box. That’s what you’ve just created for Trudy. You can put other generous wishes and dreams and needs in there, too. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. Let’s have faith in the darkness, in the night.
A poem from one of my very favorite poets, for Trudy:
You Darkness
You darkness from which I come,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence out the world,
for the fire makes a circle
for everyone
so that no one sees you anymore.
But darkness holds it all:
the shape and the flame,
the animal and myself,
how it holds them,
all powers, all sight –
and it is possible: its great strength
is breaking into my body.
I have faith in the night.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
