Magic in the dark
As a young father I walked through night with our kids…no streetlights on Little Crow Mountain, just flashlights which we could turn off and we did, in the meadow…where we could see the Milky Way like a swath cut across black sky…and countless points of light…a couple twinkled; those were planets…all the constellation shapes in bright display…magic…we were entranced.
It was different in the woods…down the path to Jones’ Brook…flashlights kept on to watch our footing…so many shadows for imaginary creatures to hide in…guided by murmuring water sounds we arrived, sat on stones at brookside…lights off, listening, nearly trembling with night chill, delicious fear…was that the soft pad of bear paws? Baby-like yowling of bobcat…snapped twigs…screech of small owl…shriek of something else don’t know what…fear is fun when you know you’re not in danger…subsides to an electric kind of calm…when we had our fill of excitement we climbed up to the cabin where my wife was waiting, in warm light, given off by crackling flames in fireplace…s’mores tonight?
When I was little Mommy would lock me in a dark room so I could learn there was nothing to be afraid of in the dark…would have been easier to believe if she had stayed with me…she was a scaredy cat…
which I proved one warm humid night in the Bahamas…Mom was taking laundry down…I hid in the bushes…snorted like a pig, snarled, heard her shriek, watched the clothes fly helter-skelter when she flung the basket…Mom didn’t think it was funny; I didn’t dare tell her there was nothing to be afraid of.
Another moonlit night Liz and I laid a blanket down in the tall grass where no one could see us…first time, both of us…she gasped, sounded in pain…told me not to stop so I didn’t but was worried…we got better with practice.
She came to break my heart, heal it, break it again…for years I spent my nights alone.
Before all this, age seventeen, cavorted with my buddies running through woods and meadow from flashing red blue lights…we had performed a swordfight in the yard for the girls in the dormitory, who laughed; a few threw panties…crunch crunch crunch on the gravel path came the security guard…we ran…police showed up…we lost them in the woods…
After this escape I capered so hard smashed the bridge of my glasses into the bridge of my nose with my knee, bled spectacularly which pleased my male adolescent spirit…tasted salt of my own blood.
In our twenties Martha and I walked from our jobs at the animal hospital to my apartment…she giggled as I took her shirt off…I had waited so long she’d thought I might be gay…so good it was cathartic, both of us crying in each other’s arms…her lovely face and form glowed in candlelight…
more than forty years after, she still glows for me.
Chanting around the fire with the Tribe on Samhain, making sacrifice to the Dark Queen and Black Bull…afterwards telling stories and riddles, sharing poetry, singing…connecting to our ancestors outside of time.
The darkest night of all was and is inside, like a cave without illumination…no creatures in there, quite alone…heart aching or quite numb. That chill darkness still hides inside…
that darkness still hides inside after years of growth and counseling, but is different now…I visit rather than set up residence…I know there is another side. I can hear…
children whispering and laughing, my first love moaning, mother shrieking to laugh only years later…the feel of her hugs…I hear girls applauding, see panties fly from windows…body remembers running, cavorting, capering, knee slamming into nose, splendid taste of my own blood…tribal riddles, stories, worship…wife welcoming us in flickering light…so much more…so much more it fills the darkness.
Persevere, and night holds magic. There is loneliness, fear, but so much magic…for me it is beautiful curves glowing in candlelight, and joy of being alive.
~ Wry Welwood
24th of October, 2021
Written in response to a Wednesday prompt In Scrittura by J.D. Harms: Let there be night.