Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
The aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill
I watch them marching
Stately and still.
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.
Moon-glitter
at the foot of my bedroll
seems on waking
to be feathers of frost.
I raise my head to gaze
at the glittering moon itself
then sink back
longing for home.
What does an 8-year-old’s nighttime ice cream run have in common with grief? More than you’d think. In this episode, Ray shares a childhood memory of facing fear in the dark and beautifully weaves it into the emotional experience of loss. Drawing wisdom from poets Rainer Maria Rilke, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes, he explores how the darkness of grief doesn’t defeat us—it trains us to see in new ways. This powerful episode invites listeners to stop resisting the night and instead, learn to walk through it with courage, patience, and hope. For anyone in mourning, this is a tender reminder: darkness doesn’t last, and the dawn is already on its way.
The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.
Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights light sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.
Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
Oh, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love
With youth, a singing voice and eyes
To take earth’s wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,
I for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
Oh, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?
The stars are golden instants in the deep
Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set:
The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep
Seeming so motionless that I forget
The hollow booming bridges, where it slides,
Dark with the sad looks that it bears along,
Towards a sea whose unreturning tides
Ravish the sighted ships and the sailors’ song.
In this episode, we explore the profound metaphor of waking up in the darkness and how it reflects the experience of grief.
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, ‘Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.’
Night never had the last word. The dawn is always invincible. ~ Hugh B. Brown
Night never had the last word. The dawn is always invincible. ~ Hugh B. Brown
