I’m heading off on a short backpacking trip with two dear friends early tomorrow morning, and as I get ready I’m thinking about darkness.

I will tell my children:

one day you may drift into

darkness, on a small ship

on the sea’s slick surface,

the moon’s reflected light reflecting

faint hope on the rolling waves.

Don’t fear this starkness,

the lonely vigil,

the shadows cast upon you and

against you, strange fish lapping

at your ship’s sides,

the roaring silence, your soul’s

uncertain state of repair.

You are alone here;

you will always be alone

in your quietest self, in your

night-time wanderings,

beneath the sky’s huge awning,

no more here than in a crowd.

There is no safer harbour, there is no

certainty of life unfolding as you wish it,

as you believed had been granted,

had been gifted.

But you are alive now, luminous watcher,

buoyed by this silent cradle,

high up on the slippery waves,

rocking,

rocking.