Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

December 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is light and darkness, in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins tonight, December 12.

Today’s poem is about the inseparability of darkness and light.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Bless the darkness, bless the light.

Open up your fearful heart.

None can sever soul from breath.

None can sever life from death.

If none can tell the two apart,

Each must bless both bloom and blight.

Sing of beauty, sing of blight,

Ecstasy and dying light!

The miracles that oceans part

Have their blueprints in the heart.

Even at the edge of death,

Life looks for eternal breath.

In every heartbeat, every breath,

Zealous to postpone the blight,

Aware of age, aware of death,

But anxious to prolong the light,

Each sings of sunlight in the heart

To bless with joy a well-played part,

Here to sing and then depart.

Eight days the nation held its breath.

Light eternal lit the heart,

Letting all know death and blight

Endure but briefly, while the light

Needs only faith to conquer death.

Granted faith can conquer death,

And God can seas and oceans part.

But life is darkness filled with light,

Radiant in every breath,

Infinity enduring blight,

Ending with a broken heart.

Life requires a ravenous heart

And every moment feeds on death,

Needing darkness, needing blight,

Dear sweet whole that none can part,

Kindling joy in every breath,

Each aging pulse a pulse of light.

Now love’s lantern lights the heart,

Now death curls around each breath.

And none can blight from blessing part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/bless8.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Light and Darkness

December 11: Have a Happy Hanukkah

December 12: Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light