Darkness, Be My Remaking

A new poem, a prompt, and an upcoming workshop

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

Darkness, Be My Remaking
	After Krissy Kludt

Darkness, be my remaking.
Hold me down through the tossed fight,

the flailing, sweating surrender, the mind
gusts of day’s abandoned thoughts

blown into a dusty corner, visited only
by a kind, shy spider. Now they plead: 

shed some light here and here and here. 
There is no blindness in your hours. 

I see more clearly the sad chaos of the world,
feel more starkly the bones of our separation,

each of us tucked away in our tiny boxes. Darkness,
hold me. Hold us all until your shadow calls, 

it’s ok, you can come out now. The light
knows your name.

I was honored to be in conversation a few days ago with the lovely poet Julia Fehrenbacher as part of her Poetry & Conversation series. It was a rich and nourishing discussion. Among other things, we spoke about the writing process and how often, in both life and in our practice, we tend to want to push away the darkness that inevitably arises, the emotions that we have a hard time naming, let alone holding or writing about.

I asked this question: What is comfort? Is it offering only poems that lift the spirit with beauty or can it also be offering a poem where the reader feels understood, saying, wow, I’m not alone. I feel that way, too. I recognize this.

The poems we feel most vulnerable sharing are the ones the world needs the most.

Often when I’m writing, I think I know what path the poem will take, and sometimes it goes in the direction I had intended. But more often than not, the poem wants to go someplace else, someplace that feels uncomfortable or vulnerable, and I try to steer it back to the easier track. When I do allow myself to follow the poem, instead of asking the poem to follow me, I am always surprised where it takes me, which probably means the reader will be surprised as well. That’s a good thing. This is where connection can take place.

The poem I share today is an example. It was inspired by a poetic discussion and reading between James Crews and poet Krissy Kludt for James’ series, The Monthly Pause. Krissy’s poem is entitled, “Darkness, Be My Undoing” from her new book, I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little, coming March 5th from Green Writer’s Press. It’s a stunning poem and I can’t wait to read the full collection.

I had intended to use the title/first line of her poem as a starting point, only my pen wrote “darkness, be my remaking” instead of “be my undoing.” Ok, I thought, that’s great. I like where this is going. I’ll write about how sleep is a restorative, how the warm bed is a place of comfort, the dark night a refuge.

But then the next line came to me. “Hold me down through the tossed fight.” Wait, no, not that. No one wants to read about that! This is supposed to be a feel good poem. But every “feel good line” I tried to write felt untrue. The truth was/is that the darkness is often a stage for all the things I’ve been pushing away during the day, those “mind / gusts of day’s abandoned thoughts” to emerge front and center. Nights are often sleep troubled, with time and space to consider and process the terror and grief. In this sense, the darkness is necessary. And oh, how the light, when it finally gathers me, is welcome!

Thank you to Julia Fehrenbacher and James Crews for your nourishing offerings, and to Krissy Kludt for the poetic inspiration.

A cherished yin-yang rock my daughter painted for me when she was 12

What does the darkness represent for you? If you could speak to darkness, what would you say? I invite you to share your thoughts/writing in the comment section below.

Thank you for reading and for your presence here.

With gratitude,

Upcoming workshop:

The Whale Road Workshop in partnership with The Arizona State Poetry Society. March 7th at 10:00 am MST. Thank you Brenda Wildrick for inviting me back!

Click here to register.