Light in Darkness

This is something I've wanted to draw/paint since I recently read a passage in a Louise Penny novel that uses the image of a moth's battering itself against a porchlight. It didn't occur to me to write it until I saw a prompt at d'Verse Poets. I still will draw it. That's next on my list. Meanwhile:

LIGHT IN DARKNESS

As for the Light in Darkness,

it's only just

a bare bulb promise

against which the lonesome soul

taps and taps 

her insistent longing

in an inevitable song 

of the night.

In the Valley

In the Valley

I expect when I get to the valley of the shadow of death,

I will find a whole forest of petrified souls,

A horde of giant rocks as far as I can see,

Crowded in together but standing each apart.

Some, like Lot’s wife, will be casting craggy glances

Over their shoulders, straining for the land of milk and honey,

Wishing someone would start the game all over

So they could learn the rules;

Others, stoic as those terra cotta warriors,

Will face forward with their hands still on the hilt

Unflinching and ready to take whatever comes their way.

Some will be massive, silent and implacable as Stonehenge.

I think my soul will be small and hard as flint,

A little me-shaped boulder wedged against a barren hill

Where I’ll wait for a weeping savior to heave me away from

The cavernous dark inside which, like Lazarus,

I find myself hobbled and bound.