Enlightenment without light

I walked the surface without knowing.
My feet knew no lesson; they kept moving.

Then the earth cracked.
The world was inverted.
The soil grew hungry, and I was swallowed.
Darkness took the place of day; the sun was eclipsed.

Soon even the opening above ceased to be.
Nothing remained but me.
And the quiet voice beneath me.

I rubbed my eyes in terrified awe.
Still, I could not see.

I longed for sight.
Only the void answered.
I wanted to escape.
Nothing could be done.

I could no longer discern.
I searched for a lantern.

Instead, snakes found my hands.
They came with silent hisses,
less executioners than warnings,
like keepers of unseen thresholds.

Perhaps that was the meaning.

I stopped resisting.
Folded and bent.
And waited like an audacious student.

Only then did the darkness begin to change.
It did not leave; it had always been there.

It entered me.
Claimed me.
Made me its own recluse.
Only then could I finally see.

The whole cave belonged to me.
Every rock, every stone
stood before my all-encompassing eye.

I walked on, stripped of fear,
until, beside a still pool, I found a plant bearing its own light,
a mere disturbance,
like an infant crying in the silence of a monastery.

I plucked it, like snuffing out a needless candle.
The last light vanished; only sacred truth remained.

I learned personally: ignorance is white, while insight is private.

At last, I entered an enlightenment that needed no light.
An eternal sleep in the depths—
the only awakening in the abyss.

― Atrona Grizel