The Dust Did Roar

Alone, adrift in the dark current.

I feel the solitude pressing,
tight enough to pluck my life entire.

Pondering whether to step off my raft,
and let the waters consume my fire.

But from the East, with the wind,
is carried a voice,
bringing with it a glimmer.

A dazzle of light,
that feels both cold and harsh,
but gives me hope.

I am not alone.

Sorrow for the other compels me to return in kind,
but the sound catches in my throat.

I struggle to release my reply,
yet I cannot.

I must give the other a warm ember,
to reignite their hearth.

I stand and throw my spark,
bright and blinding,
as a chorus to echo far.

I stop when there is little left
than ash to burn.

Quiet descends upon the world.

I await another sign,
but there is none.

As silence again becomes familiar,
thoughts of the icy embrace return.

As they crescendo,
a lone signal is spotted on the horizon.

Slowly yet steadily,
it begins to birth multitudes.

Soon the once grim and suffocating darkness,
is broken by the light of my fellow stars.

Twinkling, guiding
us to the fated shore.

Every faded ally,
a victory.

Every new constellation,
a bond reforged.

I honestly can’t remember what specific event triggered me to write this poem. From the context, I was probably feeling pretty lonely at the time. But that’s about all the insight I can give you about my state of my mind when writing this piece.

Reading it back, I certainly respond to the imagery of being a solitary point of light gradually finding oneself within a field of others. The obvious reference is a sea of stars but I do also have a soft spot for the scene in the 2010 Disney film Tangled where Rapunzel and Flynn Rider are in the middle of a lake surrounded by paper lanterns. Now that I think about it, lanterns and candles are a common symbol for someone that we have lost. It’s interesting that when releasing them, we humans never do so one by one, but in a large number. Perhaps it is a common wish that even in death, we never find ourselves alone.

I actually entered this poem in an international poetry competition last year organised by Rotary International. I thought that it fit the theme of people bringing light into dark situations and finding others who do the same, quite well. It didn’t win anything of course. I knew that when I entered it since it was one of the earlier poems that I had written, but it still felt good to get it out there and helped me build the confidence to start this blog.