Sad Poets Society № 9

Observing darkness with Christian Wiman

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

Let this month’s meeting of the Sad Poets Society commence. Today we’ll be discussing “Darkness Starts” by Christian Wiman. Let’s get into it.

Darkness Starts

BY CHRISTIAN WIMAN

A shadow in the shape of a house
slides out of a house
and loses its shape on the lawn.

Trees seek each other
as the wind within them dies.

Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.

Barefoot careless in the farthest parts of the yard
children become their cries.

These stanzas from Christian Wiman feel like the poetic version of the law of conservation of mass. That’s the one that says that mass can be neither created nor destroyed. In this poem, darkness begins as one thing and becomes another. A shadow becomes a shapeless giant. Wind becomes death. Children become their cries.

Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.