In Darkness

 

In darkness you can hide and get lost and be invisible and be intimate.

You can be yourself without the glare of eyes, of judgements, of shame or of ridicule.

You can sit back in a darkened cinema and loose yourself.

You can disappear too and never be seen

Thirty years ago I danced with some friends on the top of a multi-storey hospital at night

A backdrop of lights worthy of Manhattan in South Yorkshire.

I’ve remembered it before. 

Without a care, 

without self consciousness 

Joyous silliness,

dancing shadows against the skyline

Three years ago in choir.

A hard song made easy by sudden darkness.

No awkward glances at each other, no worries about harmonies

Voices that lifted the beams of the village hall 

Worthy of anything seen on stage

Forty years of monthly night shifts, all possessing a different pace to days

Some bad, most ok.

Occasional sleepless nights of worry where the dark drags too long and too silently

A few family bedside vigils where silence whines.

Childhood nightmares, 

sick in plastic blue buckets.

Holiday views from balcony, windows and warm Spanish beaches.

Shadowing Fruit bats circling the Sydney Opera house like chattering eagles.

Last night a faint misting of rain on West Shore with the roar of an ink sea

Last week drinking coffee in the black of an afternoon cinema was bliss

Last millennium shy sex with the curtains shut    

Just a few thoughts last night 

Whilst driving to work …..

in the dark