Poetry Friday: Splendid Darkness

I am fortunate to be acquainted with a remarkably talented artist, Pamela Sukhum. I've always admired her art, but she's really outdone herself with her latest work, Splendid Darkness 2.  In fact, I wanted to purchase the painting, but the costs of international shipping and customs would probably exceed the cost of the painting itself. So I admire from afar.

In one of those wonderful examples of one art form inspiring another, Pam was inspired to paint this particular piece by a poem:

Sweet Darkness
By: David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

And by wonderful coincidence, intrepid explorer Chris Guillebeau of the Art of Non-Conformity (a web site I love—more on this later) posted an inspirational quote by the same author on his Facebook fan page: "The cure for exhaustion isn't rest, it's enthusiasm." -David Whyte

If you are interested in Pam's work, you can see more at Infinite Vision Art and on Facebook. 

This week's Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted at The Drift Record.  In case David Whyte's Sweet Darkness wasn't enough poetry for you, you can also read one of my original poems from Monday. 

Happy Friday, everyone!