VERSE Previously published poems by Ric Cheyney
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woodminster.net (established 2012) is a website covering the work of RIC CHEYNEY
an AGRARIAN MISANTHROPE, WRITER, CRITIC, SONGSMITH and WOODLAND GARDENER
STREETLIGHT COMING ON
It flicks on where an instant before was nothing
And, dim enough already,
Dims further on that instant
As if mere arrival were all of life,
As it is all of light.
Then begins the struggle:
The several and diverse faltering moments before
The hold on life is secured;
And even so
The power is not evident at present:
This life must wait for darkness to magnify its station.
What little life, and pointless, it holds:
Arbitrary, almost adrift on its pedestal
Till blue evening deepens to black night.
Then behold its dominance of context:
How clear the sphere of gold in night’s deep darkness;
How welcome that warmth to wayward strangers
Ghosting by below.
How startled are the stars by its outshining;
How bravely it signals out to others at dark distances.
Then are we all
Glad of that sure goodness which is light,
Cheered when bright maturity
Survives those yellow, frail, first flickerings
Our shadows to dispel.
And if later we see its glow betrayed by time,
Exposed, redundant in the modern morning,
Well, what of that?
We fear no less the darkness then,
We love no less the light.
Child,
On life’s arrival,
Claim that light.
Struggle in starting
If struggle you must,
But hoard that light for blazing in the shadows, and,
When your time of brightness comes,
Shine;
End thrift, reach out and burn
As each in his own darkness has need of you.
First published 2003 in Tales Of Volunteering by Flintshire Volunteer Bureau.
MORE TO COME HERE