"Sweet Darkness", by David Whyte

Every week I choose a poem to read to my students, sometimes the poems seem to call my attention, like a magnet. I had planned to share another poem this week, and then this poem pulled my eyes and soul into it, so here it is!

Sweet Darkness

by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.

There you can be sure you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home tonight.

The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

From the Book Poetry of Presence, Grayson Books, 2017

Read the poem again, and listen to the author reading it, going to https://onbeing.org/poetry/sweet-darkness/

At Bean Hollow, California August 2020. Photography by Ron Blaj