Advent, Day 9: Let Me See You In Darkness

(Day 9 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about uncertainty (again); today we consider seeing.)

Let Me See You In Darkness (I)

Let me see you in darkness,
As by no other light.

Let me see from the facets’ inside plane;
Let me touch your pulse,
Your blood line’s other vein,
The sundown flow from
Heat or heart unknown.

Let me know you by that which you hold
Unseen,
As by no sight can every truth be shown –

Let me know, as things unsaid,
That which daytime answers fail to frame.

Let me see you in darkness –
Where words and worlds end; 

And, caught by your far Other side,
My day-bound eyes –

Transcend.

---

A river runs through Austin. Part of my day is crossing it twice: once in the early morning, once in the evening. 

As with most rivers, it is often wrapped in mist or sunrise and egrets. And it is a beautiful thing to see like that.

But it is a different creature when the clock does not match up to the sun; when the human habit of hours turns my transit nocturnal. Then, it is something not-seen – and bigger for it. 

The river breathes in darkness. The sense of it swells towards immensity; it becomes more than the place dividing two shores. It is every sense other than sight. One feels the weight of the water, the flow of a piece of the continent; one feels on the edge of – 

Something that requires setting aside sight, and perhaps speech, to comprehend.

---

---