I wish to show you the darkness
you are so afraid of.Trust me. This darkness
is a place you can enter and be
as safe in as you are anywhere;
you can put one foot in front of the other
and believe the sides of your eyes.
Memorize it. You will know it
again in your own time.
When the appearances of things have left you,
you will still have this darkness.
Something of your own you can carry with you,—Margaret Atwood, from “Interlunar,” Interlunar (Oxford University Press, 1984)