Acquainted with the Night

If you take the movie, Folsom Prison, at face value then Johnny Cash had already been well acquainted with the night before he stepped onto the stage at Folsom and re started his career. He took a chance and it paid off big time. The stakes for him were all about "him". Sometimes you just have to trust that stepping through the darkest night helps you find light. Or maybe it doesn't have to really be about getting ahead or being famous. Maybe it can be about doing what is right. Maybe "right" is "light". It was Dylan Thomas who wrote so well about this subject and advised that us saying,

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The real question is whether Thomas was suggesting that as old age comes that "light missed creates the rage" or that years of living meaningfully ensured continued rage each day in an effort to always find the light?

When I see the darkness, or things that make me think of darkness, I think of these poems posted here.

I read a blog recently raising the question of whether some of us had wanted to be Rock Stars at some point? Reference to an article in USA Today that said that "wanting to be a Rock Star still hogged the spotlight as a fantasy career". Right on. ..............Stand up and take center stage. I'll vote for that. Rock, country, a good motivational speech, anything taking us to center stage could work. Johnny did it well when he stepped forward rolled the dice and began his new career. Great song.................

I hear the train a comin';

it's rollin' 'round the bend,

And I ain't seen the sunshine

since I don't know when.

I'm stuck in Folsom Prison

and time keeps draggin' on.

But that train keeps on rollin'

on down to San Antone.

*

Maybe he was extra good because he had to step forward and had been in the darkness. Maybe folks felt his words and it was like coming back from the night.

Robert Frost -

Acquainted With the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night

.I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane

.I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.