In the Dark

By Sarah Sutro

how to survive
a long
disconnect,
a winter
of nationalist
intent,
a reduction
of feeling?

this morning the
green slate on
the window sill
glows blue,
under pots
of flowers and
bulbs
raw edges
like edges in a
gorge upstate,
shale-layered
rivers,
like pressed layers
of filo dough
in fine pastry

snow on
far buildings
also blue-
like early
moonlight –
more snow
expected
this afternoon

can you see
a flower in the dark –
huge bell-shaped
blossoms like
horns blaring
from the stem?

or make a cup
of tea
in the dark,
feel for bag of
wet leaves –
guess consistency,
how dark?
add milk. …

about our own future:

dark night already –
laws rescinded,
rights gone,
a strict new reality.
is there death of a
country as there is
of the body?
where does light
go
when there is
no lamp?

a multi-celled
being,
a large tree
or animal,
each cell
connected to the
other
so we can
speak,
breathe,
as one

we must be
the underlying
slate that
sits out
time until
running water
begins to
move the
rivers again

Sarah Sutro is a poet and painter. Her work is published in numerous magazines and books, including Amsterdam Quarterly, Panorama: Journal of the Intelligent Traveler, Rockhurst Review, The Big Chili, Greylock Independent, and in the anthologies Improv, From the Finger Lakes, Bangkok Blondes, Unbearable Uncertainty, Life Stories and Ithaca Women’s Anthology. Author of a poetry chapbook, Etudes, and a book of essays, COLORS: Passages through Art, Asia and Nature, she was a finalist for the Robert Frost Award, the Mass. Artists Foundation Poetry Grant, and won fellowships at MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony, Ossabaw Island Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, and the American Academy in Rome. She lives in the Berkshires, in Massachusetts, and you can see some of her artwork at Blue Mount Center.

Photo credit: Thomas S. Hansson via a Creative Commons license.