These 4 Corners

There Are Dark Places and Spaces Where We Can Still Talk About Them: A Poetic Response to “Darkness Too Visible.”

These companion pieces were written for good friend, Ellen Hopkins back in August of 2010. It felt appropriate in light of the recent Wall Street Journal article, “Darkness Too Visible” by Megan Cox Gurdon.

I’d like to re-dedicate these pieces to the authors cited in Gurdon’s article, the YA Community who has come out in support of #YASaves (Thanks Libba and Maureen) and to my Room 210 Readers.

“There Are Dark Places and Spaces Where We Can Still Talk about Them”: Part I

There

in the back of the house,

in the clothes closet, under the bed,

or maybe under cartoon-covered blankets,

are

elements more frightening—

terror existing, plundering under covers—

things far scarier than anything found between them—

dark

scraps and fragments of horror returning

those we would like to forget, at least deny

or tuck away deep, deep within

places

where they could be dismissed.

We could pretend they were never a part of us,

that they never settled into the places where we slept

and

dreamed. They never appeared in family photos

of some better place, waiting not only for us,

but for those who would come after—

spaces

where the sun might make itself known,

safe spaces for searching, for sharing,

for safety. A place for stories we might tell and hear

where

we could feel free to smash glasses  against stone walls,

where the turn of the cul-de-sac was not the end of the line,

where four letter words like hurt and heal could come together;

we

could stay up late into the nighttime and reclaim the dark

as a time, once again, for imagining the possibilities—

a time or re-imagining, for dreaming, remembering we

can

be larger than the elements that try to make us

feel small and helpless, building shelters from security blankets,

lifting the edges to take a peak underneath into morning

still

to find that we are still here, we are still alive,

and the sum of who we are is the sum of what we share

when we come out of silence ready to listen;

talk

about the tough stuff, baring our scars

to show where the new growth is like a new skin

proof of a battle waged when we were thrown

about

but found our bearing and straight path

the journey narrative, where we are the hero, the conquerer

and we no longer have to fear these things or anything like

them.

“There are Dark Spaces and Places Where We Can Still Talk About Them”:  Part II

There

standing in entrances and before closed doors,

standing at the ready with pens, not ball bats, to spin away

twists of yarn the stories that aren’t, knowing full-well the tales

are

those we need to tell, hear and share—how the prick of a finger

can lead to a punch in  the arm or a scratch running at arm’s length—

the progression of the unhealthy touch, in the light,

dark

or any other places the bad things find us, sometimes in the suitcases

of a relative we trusted or in a small plastic baggie with a twisty-tie

offered by the hand of a stranger  we’ve just met

places

where we should have never wandered,

but how could we have known beforehand what—who— could hurt, cut, and heal

were to be found just as well in the fluorescent lighting

and

tiled floors so carefully selected at a store specializing in making homes?

Now our shelters are like those blanket-crafted, make-shift tents,

and we live between the covers, the writing on the walls

spaces

white, messages clear as day when we are ready to receive them.

Don’t you know we are seeking guides not guardians;

we left our homes to seek the trusted keepers of the tomes?

where

are those awaiting who can help me to clarify my thinking?

Are there no answers in ancient scrolls or personal journals with answers?

And why are you clutching the scrolls so closely to your chests?

we

followed the examples of the bee and our low buzzing went unheard,

so we suppressed our song into a kind of hum,

all the while flapping our arms to no avail ; did you not see we had questions?

can

we agree that there are those who have been called to keep the stories?

we agree that there are stories that need to be carefully kept and told?

have we resolved ourselves to the two elements of story—the teller and the listener?

still

our hands are waving in the air and you mistake this

for some failed attempt to fly, so you categorized the steps

and standardized the act of taking wing in the guise of careful tutelage

talk

about what’s appropriate for each person,

look closer, you closed the door on the story and the hero both;

neither can find their way out from the trunk, the closet, the burn barrel, looking

about

for their release, out in the open where they can be heard;

there’s a journey to be taken within the words they would share

and all we need to do is to give them a place and to listen to

them.