what is it about darkness

What is it about darkness?
Does it hide the distractions?
Is it a cloud, or an absence?
Muting light waves
So that other senses can come crawling
Out from where they spend the day
Curled up, unconscious
Their little figurative eyes
Clenched tightly shut
To keep out the overwhelming loudness of day

What is it about darkness
That brings about actions
There is simply no time for otherwise
Without pushing against the instinct
To just end?

There is, rather, a call that says
That just beyond the path of day
Off in the dark wood
There is a different song that plays
On a different scale of sound
That is not tidily fractured
But is like the call of a coyote
Gliding across the rigid bars of music
It rises and falls like the tide
And Orion
And the rest of the night sky
Swings around the zenith
Like the slowly groaning rings of a tree
Grow in secret, stretching out as part
Of a nearly audible moan
That only makes itself known
In the darkness

were we really there?

At long last
After the stories have been told
And the memories polished
And the claims made "I was there"

After every carved bark has turned to dirt
And every hurt
Has faded into a shrug and a sigh
And a chuckle of surrender

After gasps and exclamations
Shaking heads and gaping mouths
All the awe and wonder
Has condensed into a thick, sticky substance
Collected on the bottoms of our shoes
We will have to answer

Were we there
Or did we just picture it?
Did we experience it
Or simply attempt to capture it?

There is a trade made with every experience
We cannot have taken from the moment
Without also giving a bit of ourselves to it
Without leaving something behind

And I hope we have not returned whole