Dark Night – a poem by Jeffrey Hanson

Dark Night
—for Mark Halliday


We know. He’s a poet who presses flowers: 
Sweet Rhodora and Lady’s Tress—
still white, still nodding. 

And he’s famous for saying: What’s “good 
for the soul is the work of the soul.”
But no poem? No poem. 

The storm knocks his door tonight.
Maples toss the dark wind from their leaves 
while Walden’s waters argue black and white.

Even so, muses must meet between page
and pen to tell us the beautiful thing. 
We know. 

What’s “good for the soul is the work of the soul” 
and a man makes “advances confidently in the 
direction of his dreams.”

But writing the beautiful and the pert is tough 
and the storm pleads the worst of prospects
after all.

And prayer begs when the wrong God rules
and a poem about being without itself is nonsense. 
So tonight, no begging. No God.

A sack of beans and a hoe in the corner are earthly 
nodes that promise possibility. The cabin, the hearth, 
the table and the lamp, the flame and the fire.

We know. To find the thing that must be found
the thing that makes the senses sing, the poet 
must do battle. 

We know he must stick close to possibilities
but raise a sword as well to abet the storm 
that nudges nature to crack itself open, for us.

Jeffrey Hanson received a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from Ohio University. He lives with his wife, Marilyn, in Bellingham, Washington. Despite fears, anxieties, and feelings of helplessness, we must remember that the Buddha was correct to say: “All is well.” That knowledge is a gift