Box full of darkness.
On page 52 of Mary Oliver’s book Thirst is her poem “The Uses Of Sorrow.”
The first time I heard of it was in a conversation with someone about depression. I remember it because the poem’s last line felt like a crack in an idea I didn’t know I was carrying around.
The full poem is as follows…
Someone I loved once gave me.
A box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
That this, too, was a gift.
Actually, it was the last word…gift…that was doing the cracking.
Sometimes, any idea that sorrow can be anything other than something to be endured…just seems like icing on a crap cake! If you know what I mean. Everything from pandemics, to pollution, to the never-ending disappointment called “politics” being all wrapped up in a bow…makes some primal part of me want to start screaming. And. Never stop.
Gratefully, some equally primal part of my 52 year old self has noticed that other things happen on this spinning planet. More and more I nod knowingly to the gift of darkness.
Look long under night skies and into the eyes of those who are tending painful endings. Beauty is out there on the far edges of great sorrow. It’s messy. But. It is. Never not there.
I’m trying to imagine that sorrow is a reflection. Like a mirror. Tilt it…this way and that…sorrow somehow shapeshifts….
Maybe into acceptance.
Maybe into meaning.
Maybe into art.
Maybe into a gift.
Just Maybe.
All this is not for the faint of heart. Getting it. Forgetting it.
Bouncing back and forth. Probably getting more and more cracks. My heart breaks.
It can take years. So the wise poetess tells me!
As an aside…
Mary Oliver makes this note under the poem’s title that says...
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Her poem literally came out of the physical reality of the darkness of sleep. Something about that makes it even more…MORE!
ps…
I just realized I had intended to write about the line A box full of darkness because it has become a thread of inspiration for this mixed media work on paper. Lot’s more on that for another time.
It could take years! Wink!
Till then here are some WIP snaps along the way.
Enjoy.
