The following poem by Theodore Roethke seems even more powerful to me today than when I first read it. Throughout his adult life this brilliant Pulitzer award winning poet suffered from manic depression, which actually fueled his writing and actually made him more productive. But combined with a lack of self-esteem and a tendency to turn more and more to drink, plus lots of other factors in his life it would contribute to several notable nervous breakdowns over the years.
Although it speaks of depression In a Dark Time also speaks of a self-discovery, a reawakening. Often we lose ourselves in our despair and abandon all hope, but the loss of the most important things in life can also act as catalysts that give way to insights that have the ability to enrich our future lives. Sometimes in such moments of despair, it is only then that we can discover our true selves, and as time tests us, we can find out who we are and what we truly believe. And although the poem comes with no happy ending, and he is not out of the darkness, he is nevertheless still searching, not quite given up on hope. Sadly on this day, which adds more poignancy, whilst taking a dip in a friend's swimming pool, Theodore had a heart attack and died. He was just 55 years old.
This poem however is one of those poems I like to keep close to in difficult times, in it he manages to create something powerful that connects readers to their own self-doubts and struggles of finding ones way again. Remember those dark periods most of us experience, they actually can serve a purpose, transforming, releasing compassionate hearts, readying for the blaze of light. ' In a dark time, the eye begins to see.'
In a Dark Time - Theodore Roethke
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or a winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
