Meryl Stratford
What Speaks to Us in Darkness
A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words for it.
—The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three
‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?’
I certainly didn’t, sent to bed before sunset
on a summer night with only a radio
for company. The world had neglected to tell me
about Hiroshima and the Holocaust.
The Shadow could cloud men’s minds, become
invisible, unravel any code.
The Shadow knew I didn’t want to know.
Other nights I rode with the Lone Ranger.
The world needed heroes to solve its problems
and set things right. The William Tell Overture
was my first earful of classical music—that rush
of reckless excitement and ‘Hi, ho, Silver!’
Not long ago I saw Toscanini conduct it—
an old recording on YouTube—and, watching him,
I cried. They say there is no sound
in outer space—a dark silence surrounds us—
but radio waves undulate through the void.
If we listen, we can hear dazzling
and dangerous particles from the sun,
chirping like crickets on a summer night on Earth.
Note: The final stanza of this poem borrows from the work of physicist
Craig Kletzing (1958-2023). More of his work can be found on the Internet.