Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light

Watch me read
the poem as
a YouTube video.

Music: Clue Night.
By Damiano Baldoni.
Performed by Damiano Baldoni at the Free Music Archive
under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Alpha List

Hanukkah Poems

Bless the darkness, bless the light.
Open up your fearful heart.
None can sever soul from breath.
None can sever life from death.
If none can tell the two apart,
Each must bless both bloom and blight.

Sing of beauty, sing of blight,
Ecstasy and dying light!
The miracles that oceans part
Have their blueprints in the heart.
Even at the edge of death,
Life looks for eternal breath.
In every heartbeat, every breath,
Zealous to postpone the blight,
Aware of age, aware of death,
But anxious to prolong the light,
Each sings of sunlight in the heart
To bless with joy a well-played part,
Here to sing and then depart.

Eight days the nation held its breath.
Light eternal lit the heart,
Letting all know death and blight
Endure but briefly, while the light
Needs only faith to conquer death.

Granted faith can conquer death,
And God can seas and oceans part.
But life is darkness filled with light,
Radiant in every breath,
Infinity enduring blight,
Ending with a broken heart.
Life requires a ravenous heart
And every moment feeds on death,
Needing darkness, needing blight,
Dear sweet whole that none can part,
Kindling joy in every breath,
Each aging pulse a pulse of light.
Now love's lantern lights the heart,
Now death curls around each breath.
And none can blight from blessing part.