Walking in the Darkness

I'm not sure that this is quite poetry, but I let it be in the form that it came in. I have been pondering walking in the darkness this week and this was the result. Enjoy in joy!

My morning walks sometimes begin in the dark. I am not a fan of this circumstance. The other morning I found myself wondering why I am resistant to this idea. After all I’m not afraid of the dark, right?

Footsteps in the dark seem muffled.
Are sounds quieter in the dark of pre-dawn?
I set out one step at a time
unsure of the uneven ground beneath my feet.
The same ground that is uneven every morning,
now in the dark feels more unsteady.
My well trodden path is more difficult to see.
I move with uncertainty rather than grace.
A rustle in the woods from a source unseen
startles me.

Thus the moment of awakening.
An unknown, that in full light would have brought me joy,
in the darkness brought me fear.

Why?
I knew in either light or dark that the creator of the sound was
a deer friend,
likely more startled by my presence than me by hers.

Yet, without light I doubted my own knowing.

An absence of light brought doubt,
even though I knew the light would soon illuminate the sky.
Doubt in darkness.
Knowing only in light?

Doubt despite the information from my senses being the same,
a rustling, a leaping and a flight through the woods.
The only difference was I couldn’t see clearly.
I was deprived of that one sense.

Then I knew.
It was so simple that I would have laughed,
had I not been so surprised.
Do I really think that people who are blind live their lives in doubt?
Do they not believe what they know just because they can’t see it with their eyes?

Again in the casting of life, I play the fool!
Only in the darkness could I truly see.

At long last the light finally broke,
just when I no longer needed it to see by. 

October 23, 2013