Morning (II)
I thought I glimpsed a faint glow in the distance, I thought I saw a light behind the trees. I heard a noise (was it a birdsong?) somewhere, I thought I felt a gentle morning breeze. And so I waited eagerly for morning, With every breath I bid goodbye to night, And shivering in the darkness by my window, I hoped and dreamed and watched and prayed for light. The dawn comes slow, I know, but this was too slow. Why wasn’t sunshine lighting up the lawn? I bit my lip and gazed out at the darkness: This wasn’t morning. This was a false dawn.
It’s like running one’s finger over a scar, rereading a poem written under the shadow of a sadness which has since faded from sight. There is only the evidence that there was once pain, not the pain itself. A dear friend of mine describes it as “like waters gone by”.
It never feels that way at the time, of course. While this particular sadness has faded, I have my fair share of others, and it is hard to imagine how I would ever be able to look back on some of them without wincing. And maybe I never will (this side of heaven, anyway), but revisiting a bleak poem like this reminds me that it’s at least possible that one day I might.
And so might you.