“Almost Worth Remembering” © Edward Lee

 

Darkness as a Doorway

There’s a way to see this world
beyond black and white,
a way of being afraid without taking flight.
Shatter if you need to
into a thousand pieces
on the night floor.

Just be there in the morning,
bent over with the boom and dustpan.
crawling too is a prostration, a supplication,
kneeling before the disasters
we are all capable of causing.

Face all your worst case scenarios.
Pick through the pile of regrets.
It’s there you’ll have to go to be free.
The happiest among us have seen the most pain.
They watched the winter come too early
for the spring plantings to make it.

But there are in this world ones who have walked through.
Those who waited out the winter to plant again.
Darkness is a doorway
you either walk through or into.
Only those who can tell you what they fear most
walk out to meet the spring
with more joy than makes sense
                                                 considering.

 

Luke Maguire Armstrong has lived across the world and now bases his life in Karuna Atitlan, the conscious artist/writer community he founded in Guatemala. He’s spent over a decade helping children break free from generational poverty with the Integral Heart Family and is the author of four collections of poetry, including “All the Beloved Known Things” (2019) and bestselling, “The Starlight Still Within Us” (2021). He’s the author of a collection of non-fiction travel stories “The Nomads Nomad” (2015) and just published his first novel, “How One Guitar Will Save the World” (2021). Sometimes his joy is the cause of his smile, other times his smile causes his joy.

Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll. He is currently working on two photography collections: Lying Down With The Dead and There Is A Beauty In Broken Things.He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Car roll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy.