It is not merely a vacuum from which light
Has been withdrawn, but a dense, living thing;
A heavy curtain drawn across the sight,
A comfort where the conscience will not sting.
It is the velvet slumber, deep and warm,
That shields the dreamer from the jagged edge,
Preventing the encounter with the storm,
And building peace upon a crumbling ledge.
A carefully constructed sanctuary,
Where inconvenient facts are never known;
The sweetness of a planned hypocrisy,
The solace of a seed that is not sown.
We choose the narrow path within the gloom,
And clutch the quiet lie that settles deep,
Believing silence holds the key to bloom,
And that closed eyes alone can guarantee sleep.
But ignorance is weighted with a cost:
That which is unseen does not cease to be.
The vital hours that are deeply lost,
The fragile state of false immunity.
The shadow that we foster and allow,
Grows heavy, holding back the vital air,
Until the pressure breaks the gilded bough,
And shatters the belief that nothing’s there.
For truth arrives, though slow, with chilling grace,
And tears away the comforting façade,
Revealing the stark outline of the place
Where careful blindness finally betrayed.
And we must choose to turn and face the day,
To shed the ballast of the heavy doubt,
For knowledge hurts, but shows the only way
To step beyond the dark and climb straight out.