A Poem by Jon Silvestri

Darkness, Light

Many beautiful things 
Begin in darkness

Oaks, roses and eggplants
All take their first breath 
In inky soil

Coffee beans, those 
Delicious bringers of light
Still need peeling from the
Blackness of their husk
Before they wake up 
The morning 

And the sun's luminosity 
Began in the obscurity
Of nothingness
The penultimate night
Before the Big Bang
Exploded everything 
Into brilliance

So constellations
Could shed their glory
Through light years
Of black space.

And the roads
Of the underworld
Where dark paths of dark dreams
Seem interminable 
And inevitable,

Break from the inside
Like a chick pushing free
From the prison home
Of its shell
And seeing daylight
For the first time 
With blurred, virgin eyes