David Whyte: "Sweet Darkness"

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 womb
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.



"Sweet Darkness" by David Whyte, from The House of Belonging (Many Rivers Press, 1996). Text as published on the poet's website.  

Art credit: "Night Fisherman in a Dugout Canoe on the Zambezi River," photographic print by Chris Johns.