Dick Westheimer
The Dark Places Are
…deep in a bottle of ink before
the cap is loosed, before the pen
is dipped and the letters unfurled
on the quiet white of the page;
…between the covers of a book tucked
on a shelf—until a child comes by,
takes it down, opens it
and lets the words spill out;
…under the blankets of the winter-
made bed where my love and I
crawl in and illuminate the space
between the sheets;
…inside the husk of the walnut shell
beneath a fall of leaves,
a germ, an idea, a reaching
dream of a tree;
…where the roots of the tree
reach, where a layer of rock
stirs. Another resists. Thus
the birth of one more abyss;
…under the rubble of a hospital
blast, a toddler squalls, two
bare hands, bloody and raw, let light
in, brick by brick;
…in the heart of a bomb—
tick tick tick;
…in the heart of a man,
blood so thick;
…from behind my tight
eyes a tear works loose
into the sun-blind day;
…caught in the clench of my mouth,
pinched within my stitched-shut lips,
a song, a gift, waits its turn;
…deep in the lines of this poem,
where darkness searches
for a light that will not burn.