Blessed Are Those Who Dwell in Utter Darkness

Music: The Art of the Fugue, Fugue 16.
By J. S. Bach. Sequenced by Alessandro Simonetto at Kunst der Fuge.

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Blessed are those who dwell in utter darkness,
On whom depend the paladins of light.
Noon is not the time for exploration,
Nor can one sense but sheltered from sensation,
Intensely saturated with delight,
Embracing the black verge of nothingness.

Most abhor the thought of nothingness,
Abhor the grace of death, abhor the darkness,
Revering the regalia of light.
Know that darkness is the fount of light
Underneath the fabric of sensation,
Source of salience, goal of exploration.

Longing is the cause of exploration,
Inherent at the heart of nothingness,
Luring one to look beyond sensation
Into the enduring truth of darkness,
The chaos at the coming of the light
Holding in its arms a doomed delight.

Granted a desire for delight,
An impetus for avid exploration.
Being is but temporary light,
Ravenous from birth for nothingness.
Immersed in being, one still sees the darkness,
Even in the silence of sensation,
Longing for the silence of sensation.

Each moment is a luminous delight
Lighting by some miracle the darkness,
Lighting a domain for exploration
Edged by an eternal nothingness.
Nor can one grasp the being of this light.

Some find their eternity in light,
Excising time from temporal sensation.
There is no thing that lasts but nothingness,
Harbinger and grave of all delight,
End and starting point of exploration,
Life and death, radiance and darkness.
In darkness is the center of sensation,
Zone of light, field of exploration.
All delight is nascent nothingness.