Peninsula Poetry: ‘Praise for Dark Things Too’

Sharon Auberle. Photo by Len Villano.

curated by the Door County Poets Collective

Sharon Auberle is a poet and photographer who fell in love with Door County in 1984 and made it her home in 2008. She has a number of poetry collections, four of which include collaborations with other poets. Her latest book is a poetry/sketch collaboration with poet and artist Jeanie Tomasko titled Dovetail, which earned the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ Annual Chapbook Prize. In April 2017, Auberle was appointed poet laureate of Door County, a two-year post through April 2019. She is a passionate lover of water, trees and dachshunds, though not necessarily in that order.

•••

PRAISE FOR DARK THINGS TOO

by Sharon Auberle

“You run like a herd of luminous deer and I am dark, I am forest.” ~  Rainer Maria Rilke

on this bright morning

when light streams

into every old    cold corner

when sun warms each shadow

burrowing

whether we ask it or not

into our own darkness

we are    for a moment

assured

that we will be saved

for a brief time we have faith

that the rolling wind

won’t blow us away

and those sparks

that sometimes shoot 

from our hands

will not set us on fire

on a morning like this

we know that the crow

knows   in spite of her blackness

that she will resurrect

and the grass in its greenness

will always sing

for it is fine to be

a dark thing    as well as a light

and even though

we are just passing through

we get to have all of this

and love too

Peninsula Poetry is a monthly column curated by the Door County Poets Collective, a 12-member working group that was formed to publish Soundings: Door County in Poetry (Caravaggio Press, 2015) and continues to meet.