Seeing Black by Roger Suffling

January 18, 2022

Poem name: Seeing Black Poet name: Roger Suffling Poem begins: Mimicking the lonesome hound out back Our motel’s neon yammered Vacancy! Streetlights tore holes in darkness While security lamps stood sentinel A cordon for our fears Whose shadows loomed beyond Under the bug-swirled veil that passed for sky We light-prisoners chattered, chugged beer Leaned back on lawn chairs for an easy treat A pretty summer moonlit night A clichéd Milky Way But Manitoulin’s vaunted sky had fled So, on the lam from bright banality We motored out, across the island bridge Over inky waters glinting And further still we probed The limestone barrens High beams lurching to the end of rutted tracks I cut the engine, killed the lights But still our words Were guttering candles Haloed against the night Until we snuffed them, gingerly Surrendering to the unfamiliar void Whole Silent Turning Unfettered Hurtling outward Everywhere And graced by all the ancients’ lamps that ever danced End of Poem. Credits: Copyright © Roger Suffling “Seeing Black” received an honorable mention in the Night Sky Poetry Competition, May 2020. Roger Suffling is an ecologist living in Kitchener, Ontario. His recent work has been published in Alternatives Journal, Morphrog, Poetry Pause and Shot Glass Journal.