In praise of darkness, a waning reserve
- April
- London EMAP Publishing Limited 2020
- 6-13p.
The word darkness has connotations of grief and illness and night and the colour black – and my own fear of the dark. Darkness is generally a negative word, a word that is heavy and sad and pulls other words down with it. Dark heart. Dark days. Dark past. Dark path. Dark mood. Dark humour.
Dark age. A dark chapter in our lives, in history. There often has to be light for everything to be well, in poems and songs and literature and buildings and life in general. In the West, light is associated with truth, knowledge, and being able to see. The dichotomy of the light heaven and the dark hell has persisted in both subculture and popular culture. Light is safety; darkness loses its power in the light – and trolls turn to stone and shatter.