Monday, November 11, 2019

Once You Go Black




image from pinterest.com


Once You Go Black

“Darkness is immortal, but the blackness itself
is also pure and blazing and fierce.”
--Carl Sagan

Cats see real good
in the dark,
so do owls.
They have vastly different
pupils and retinas
than we do.

Our own pupils dilate
in the dark
in order to capture
as much light as possible.
That’s why it’s such a shock
to walk from a darkened theater
into a bright sunny day.

More specifically,
it’s the rods in the retina
that give us the capacity
for night vision.
It is, of course,
the visual cortex
in the brain
that interpret and define
the wayward pixels
sent to it.

But the ebon chaos
that we are immersed in daily,
creates a kind of darkness
that we have difficulty penetrating--
day for night reality.

I say if it’s darkness
we are having,
let it be extravagant,
so that more people pay
attention to it, and we will
be forced to work together
to bring back the light.



Glenn Buttkus

Prosery

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

11 comments:

Victoria said...

I applaud that ending, Glenn. I'm wishing, though, that we would want to work together again and not need to be forced. I always enjoy your well-thought-out writing.

sarah said...

I like the shift from real darkness to something more metaphorical.

Kim M. Russell said...

I'm with Sarah - love the ending too!

indybev said...


"ebon chaos" -- how aptly put. If only we could all work together --- of if only!

Jade Li said...

Maybe in another dimension...

Dwight L. Roth said...

Yes you are right! We need to walk through the dark times with people and bring them light!

Debi Swim said...

"But the ebon chaos
that we are immersed in daily,
creates a kind of darkness
that we have difficulty penetrating--
day for night reality."...………… Ah, the frog in the heating water..... I think you are on to something. Kind of explains where we are today.

Linda Lee Lyberg said...

I am loving the ending here Glenn!

Ken Gierke said...

It's definitely getting darker.

brudberg said...

I think that we tend to see the darkness so much we have forget that the light is still there somewhere... we just have to find it together.

Kerfe said...

I like the sentiment, but I fear that day is far away...as Ken said, it's definitely getting darker.