alone in your house. It’s two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story...
In the Secular Night ~ Margaret Atwood
 |
| Night Windows (1928) Edward Hopper |
The nights are not dark enough.
I sleep with the windows wide open
and wake at all hours, and always the night
is lit above and below by streetlights
or the diaphanous moon. I rise
to look at my garden which murmurs
like a strange sea and seems to heave
and flow; and I don’t know if my room is atop
a tower, or below decks of an abandoned ship.
I only know that I am alone. And it is night.
Without a god to pray to, or ghost lover
to yearn for, or blindness to hide myself
from myself. Only the undark, the unquiet night.
And my breath fogging a pane of glass
with every question I no longer want to ask.
Instructions for Living a Life, a poem inspired by contemporary poet, Margaret Atwood.
Oh my heart this is beautiful, solemn and painstakingly honest. I can picture 'the unquiet night' and that pane of glass perhaps mirroring our emotions and daring us to fight.❤️
ReplyDeleteThank you for your wonderful response, Sanaa. I appreciate it.
DeleteLet me let you in on a little secret --- invent your own ghost lover(s). Don't wait for them to be "real." Then they're perfect and ALL about you. ;) Voices on the radio are a good start.
ReplyDeleteThe second stanza is making me all hot and bothered --- "I slit ..." The good and sexy kind of slit, I hope. <3
Trust you to find words within words, my dear!
Delete;-)
Love this and the poet you have selected. And thank you for your comment on my post.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Annell, and thank you!
DeleteI never cared for Atwood's fiction but this makes me want to read her poetry. The last stanza - every question I no longer want to ask...either you have gained the knowledge through the darkness or you are tired of asking the same question over and over and never receiving an answer. Thank you for this wonderful challenge.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Toni.
DeleteI like the beautiful description of the garden and the room which is sort of a hallucinatory experience no doubt affected by the big bright diaphanous moon and the desperate feeling of being totally alone.
ReplyDeleteAtwood's poem put me into that frame of mind. She explored the nature of loneliness so well in her poem. It is well worth a read.
DeleteI resonate with women waking at all hours, alone in the night. I keep my windows wide too, my spirit needs to see Out at all times. This is lovely, Kerry.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, Sherry... we should let our spirits see Out more often. Too many things to keep us trapped.
DeleteAt first, the penultimate stanza seem to be a lost. But the undark and unquiet of the end (love those words, by the way) make it all better. There is such freedom in questions we no longer need answers for.
ReplyDeleteI hope so.. I feel like we all have our individual loneliness to work through, and somehow the night seems to heighten the sense of separation, for me anyway.. so that's where the poem led me.
Deleteone of your best, Kerry ~
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this, Michael, and for always reading. It means a lot to me.
DeleteOh my, there's something about this night and its all prevailing darkness that sets in the soul — the atmosphere of this scene and its corresponding emotions is palpable. It's something lived and experienced in the form of that question one do not want to ask.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully done, Kerry! Love your choice of the poet and the inspiring poem.
Thank you for this sensitive reading, Anmol. I really learn something about my own pieces by reading such excellent commentary.
Delete"The nights are not dark enough." I was raised in the country where it was extremely dark and I find city lights intrusive to the silence I want to bore into at night. I feel this poem. I think it has sat on the foot of my bed. Amazing writing!
ReplyDeleteWhat a remarkably poetic comment, Susie. Thanks so much!
DeleteSad and dismal feelings emitted. It is a nice answer to Atwoood's hint of funny business. I have read a few of her poems here and there but I don't know much about her. I needs finding out. The picture was perfect for both poems.
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting this.
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I agree with Michael this is tops -- solitude's nocturne. Such a long road, and it goes beyond faith and passion and even acceptance of the loss. Quite a hammer in those concluding stanzas. Amen sister.
ReplyDeleteThank you, brother. This one took a decidedly melancholy turn but sometimes I like to go there.
DeleteI can really feel the night being a comfort and a friend in this poem... the day is what hurts us... but in solitude there is no one to maim you.
ReplyDelete