It's the dropping down from shadows into light,
that's what I live for,
much like the actress who has spent an hour
on stage as Medusa
or the actor who has let himself
be eclipsed by Romeo,
much like the one who has become someone foreign,
lived in a garment until the cloth
seemed to be more real than God's river
bringing water from mountaintop to ocean.
After the curtain drops
and thunder fills the house,
after the playwright's world has vanished,
the actor stands before the crowd
and for the first time he is present,
the actor drops down from the shadow into light
and becomes a river flowing from mountaintop to ocean,
a tree in winter without stories,
the emptiness,
the witness,
the divine.
"From Shadows into Light" was originally published in PYM Today, Summer 2011. It will be included in Robertson's next volume of poetry.
