Sweet Darkness

By David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

– David Whyte
(from his 1997 collection,
House of Belonging)

For more of David Whyte's writings at The Wild Reed, see:
• "To Be Courageous Is to Stay Close to the Way We Are Made"
• Self Portrait

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Dark Matter: "An Intriguing Aspect of the Universe"
• Dark Matters

Image: A still from Fritz Lang's 1956 film, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse.