Lighting The Dark

an Advent calendar for tender times

✨ Welcome and thank you for being on this journey to explore the mysteries and possibilities of Advent with me. ✨

As we are in the first week of Advent, we are burning a candle for hope, a theme that will run through all this week’s sharing.

Yesterday’s post ended up longer than anticipated. In my defence, hope was a big topic to introduce for the week. But today is Monday and I’m sure you’re all busy, busy, busy, so the least I can do is keep things short.

And sweet… I have something so beautiful for you today, it will rinse your heart. A sonnet by the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen (1903-1946) which explores Black resilience and community.

FROM THE DARK TOWER

We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made eternally to weep.

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars is no less lovely being dark,
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

Countee Cullen

It is traditional in a sonnet to have a volta, a turn of thought, between the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (final six lines). In the first part of this poem, Cullen’s emphasis is on the weight of racial oppression. Then, in the second part, he shifts his focus to the beauty and possibility of darkness. He reminds us that stars shine brighter for being offset by a night sky, and that there are plants that bloom only at night.

If you are feeling despondent about the many troubles of the world this wintery Monday morning, then I hope this sonnet will help to remind you that the seeds of change always take root in the dark.

I’ll be back with a few more words of hope tomorrow,

Sophie ✨

P.S. Thank you to the kind reader who alerted me that spellcheck had changed Howard Thurman’s name to Harold Thurman in yesterday’s email. I wish I had seen that before I sent it. Bless my errors, I am sure there will be more, and I’d be so grateful if you can keep pointing them out to me.

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If you have just arrived, welcome and thank you for being here. Feel free to catch up with posts from December 1 , December 2 and December 3.