Oh, Jay, your poem 'A Box Full of Darkness' takes my breath away. I will be reading this again and again. - NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, award-winning poet, distinguished author, professor of creative writing & grieving mother
A Box Full of Darkness
NOTE: This poem emerged one day in response to a tiny poem by Mary Oliver ("The Uses of Sorrow"), in which the poet receives from a loved one the mysterious gift of "a box full of darkness." I published an earlier version of this on LinkedIn, in memory of my daughter, Beth, on July 27, 2018, nine days after her suicide. This version appears in my book, Girl of Light & Shadow (2022).
1
Is this not what everyone we care for
gives us—a box full of darkness--
the moment we cross the risky threshold of love?
Once we perceive that he or she has captured
our lonely, longing and long-suffering hearts.
Certainly, at first, we are aware of light alone,
the soft surprising glow or sudden flash,
the blazing incandescence of the
more apparent gift. We feel
the warmth and wonder as the spark
leaps eye to eye, or skin to skin.
We barely notice the presence of the box,
slipped quietly on a dusty shelf within
the storeroom of the soul.
Waiting for the day that we must open it and peer inside,
the day we must receive the dark and second gift of love.
My son, born six weeks early—so tiny, still and purple,
I could barely breathe, as if I too were being born
and striving for my first uncertain inspiration
—arrived bearing such a box.
He gave it to me for safe keeping
as the nurse placed his little body in my hands
and I received him into my astonished heart.
Blood and angels singing in my ears.
My daughter, too—with face averted from the fearful passage;
so determined to remain inside her safe and quiet room,
we had to cut her out against her will—offered me another box.
One that I was forced to open, far too soon.
So small they seem, at first, these boxes full of darkness.
Once opened, though, they deepen to a bottomless abyss
in which we fall headlong, and cry with fear.
When love turns into loss or pain
and suffering that we cannot relieve.
When light blinks out or slowly fades . . .
and all we see is darkness.
There we rest until the ancient light of stars begins
to penetrate the gloom. However long it takes.
2
Emerging from a chrysalis of sorrow, then,
transformed into something else completely,
we finally grasp the second gift of love:
We can feel the pain of others, even strangers,
who have loved and lost or languished in the night,
and this might not have happened had we
not endured the emptiness ourselves.
We link our hands and hearts and wrap with care and kindness
more boxes full of darkness; exchange them with each other.
These promises of pain to come, so priceless for
the beauty and the purpose they afford us
in the here and now. Who could complain?
Throw open wide the door to this repository.
Stock the shelves with joy.
We will, of course, lose all whom we hold dear,
whether it is we who must let go or they,
I fear we cannot bond without one day being broken.
And, oh, the token of our interwoven love
is this small box of darkness either
we or they must open.
Yet darkness is essential if you want to see the stars.
And eyes attuned to night can see much more than ours
when we are willing only to receive the light.
If you want to find a home in this fragmented world,
to take your place among the family of things,
you must accept these boxes full of darkness.
Each one is a gift, just as the poet claims.
You know it when you look into the eyes
of one who has descended into that abyss,
and flails about for solid ground.
You know the way. You can hold out your hand.
They’ll only trust you if your hand is warm,
the love that gave the gift still living on in you,
still reaching out to form another link
in this great chain of being, binding
past to future, passing as it must
through this most precious,
present moment.
The only time you ever breathe
or weep or touch the fragile web
of life, which your sad soul
shares with mine
on this, our lonely island
in the deep black box
of space and time.
© Jay E. Valusek
Is this not what everyone we care for
gives us—a box full of darkness--
the moment we cross the risky threshold of love?
Once we perceive that he or she has captured
our lonely, longing and long-suffering hearts.
Certainly, at first, we are aware of light alone,
the soft surprising glow or sudden flash,
the blazing incandescence of the
more apparent gift. We feel
the warmth and wonder as the spark
leaps eye to eye, or skin to skin.
We barely notice the presence of the box,
slipped quietly on a dusty shelf within
the storeroom of the soul.
Waiting for the day that we must open it and peer inside,
the day we must receive the dark and second gift of love.
My son, born six weeks early—so tiny, still and purple,
I could barely breathe, as if I too were being born
and striving for my first uncertain inspiration
—arrived bearing such a box.
He gave it to me for safe keeping
as the nurse placed his little body in my hands
and I received him into my astonished heart.
Blood and angels singing in my ears.
My daughter, too—with face averted from the fearful passage;
so determined to remain inside her safe and quiet room,
we had to cut her out against her will—offered me another box.
One that I was forced to open, far too soon.
So small they seem, at first, these boxes full of darkness.
Once opened, though, they deepen to a bottomless abyss
in which we fall headlong, and cry with fear.
When love turns into loss or pain
and suffering that we cannot relieve.
When light blinks out or slowly fades . . .
and all we see is darkness.
There we rest until the ancient light of stars begins
to penetrate the gloom. However long it takes.
2
Emerging from a chrysalis of sorrow, then,
transformed into something else completely,
we finally grasp the second gift of love:
We can feel the pain of others, even strangers,
who have loved and lost or languished in the night,
and this might not have happened had we
not endured the emptiness ourselves.
We link our hands and hearts and wrap with care and kindness
more boxes full of darkness; exchange them with each other.
These promises of pain to come, so priceless for
the beauty and the purpose they afford us
in the here and now. Who could complain?
Throw open wide the door to this repository.
Stock the shelves with joy.
We will, of course, lose all whom we hold dear,
whether it is we who must let go or they,
I fear we cannot bond without one day being broken.
And, oh, the token of our interwoven love
is this small box of darkness either
we or they must open.
Yet darkness is essential if you want to see the stars.
And eyes attuned to night can see much more than ours
when we are willing only to receive the light.
If you want to find a home in this fragmented world,
to take your place among the family of things,
you must accept these boxes full of darkness.
Each one is a gift, just as the poet claims.
You know it when you look into the eyes
of one who has descended into that abyss,
and flails about for solid ground.
You know the way. You can hold out your hand.
They’ll only trust you if your hand is warm,
the love that gave the gift still living on in you,
still reaching out to form another link
in this great chain of being, binding
past to future, passing as it must
through this most precious,
present moment.
The only time you ever breathe
or weep or touch the fragile web
of life, which your sad soul
shares with mine
on this, our lonely island
in the deep black box
of space and time.
© Jay E. Valusek
Deep, philosophical, and amazingly beautiful. Since I first discovered 'A Box Full of Darkness' on LinkedIn, I have read your poem numerous times, and each time I gain a new level of understanding. - S.P., California
Suicide is a Poem
Suicide is a poem,
I say, and pause.
They do not look convinced.
A tragedy, perhaps, reply their faces.
No rhyme or reason. No heroic meter.
A travesty, at that.
It’s how you read it, I suggest.
The poem’s power lies not
in the text alone, nor in some obscure
intent within the author’s mind or soul.
It’s more a conversation than
the period that concludes a sentence--
even one of death.
It’s the question mark that
precludes a glib interpretation.
You must read the verse
and listen, first, to what it says
to you. And you, and you.
No one hears the poem alike.
It speaks a secret language to the heart
of each. Subtle, and unique.
Nor do we stay the same, one reading
to the next. The ear itself has changed,
indeed, the world, too. The text,
meanwhile, remains.
Suicide is a poem,
I claim, again. Their faces cloud,
but I persist.
It’s different now
than when you heard it first,
if you don’t resist, you see?
It matters not just what
the author meant to say or do,
but also how it sounds to me
and how it touches you.
We’re meant to speak it
time and time again,
with diverse voices.
Until, one day, we sense
the poet’s choices—from the inside out.
Now the words belong to us, alone.
As if the fingers were our own,
and we had penned
the blesséd poem.
Their faces soften; I relent.
I’m not even sure that I know
what I meant.
© Jay E. Valusek
I say, and pause.
They do not look convinced.
A tragedy, perhaps, reply their faces.
No rhyme or reason. No heroic meter.
A travesty, at that.
It’s how you read it, I suggest.
The poem’s power lies not
in the text alone, nor in some obscure
intent within the author’s mind or soul.
It’s more a conversation than
the period that concludes a sentence--
even one of death.
It’s the question mark that
precludes a glib interpretation.
You must read the verse
and listen, first, to what it says
to you. And you, and you.
No one hears the poem alike.
It speaks a secret language to the heart
of each. Subtle, and unique.
Nor do we stay the same, one reading
to the next. The ear itself has changed,
indeed, the world, too. The text,
meanwhile, remains.
Suicide is a poem,
I claim, again. Their faces cloud,
but I persist.
It’s different now
than when you heard it first,
if you don’t resist, you see?
It matters not just what
the author meant to say or do,
but also how it sounds to me
and how it touches you.
We’re meant to speak it
time and time again,
with diverse voices.
Until, one day, we sense
the poet’s choices—from the inside out.
Now the words belong to us, alone.
As if the fingers were our own,
and we had penned
the blesséd poem.
Their faces soften; I relent.
I’m not even sure that I know
what I meant.
© Jay E. Valusek
The Meaning of Life
What if
suddenly
you knew?
What if
all came
clear?
Not like the blinding flash
of an explosion. More
like the inexorable rising
of the sun: and then
there
was
light.
Could you close your eyes,
could you fall asleep,
again? How, then,
would you live?
Where else could you live
but in the spacious place
between the two horizons
knowing at last,
but not too late
—before the dreaded
setting of the sun—
that there was time
enough remaining for
all that really mattered
to be done.
If all came clear.
If love really was
the simple secret
hidden in plain sight
for all these years.
© Jay E. Valusek
suddenly
you knew?
What if
all came
clear?
Not like the blinding flash
of an explosion. More
like the inexorable rising
of the sun: and then
there
was
light.
Could you close your eyes,
could you fall asleep,
again? How, then,
would you live?
Where else could you live
but in the spacious place
between the two horizons
knowing at last,
but not too late
—before the dreaded
setting of the sun—
that there was time
enough remaining for
all that really mattered
to be done.
If all came clear.
If love really was
the simple secret
hidden in plain sight
for all these years.
© Jay E. Valusek
