The BlackBy Ben Colandrea
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He who lives long a host of things will know,
The world affords him nothing new to see.
Much have I seen, in wandering to and fro,
Including crystallized humanity.
– Goethe
The world affords him nothing new to see.
Much have I seen, in wandering to and fro,
Including crystallized humanity.
– Goethe
The Black has ever fostered balance in the bower of the mind. Long has it wore at the center of thought as zenith, as nadir. In the guise of a shadow, it has ventured without its privacy to offer itself to the world. But, alas, the Black, it is a lonely illumination. Lo the shadow of the world and the worldly below. Loreless, the miasma of the mind is the nature of the night, of the Gray, of the worldly despair into which the Black descends. Through every tempest and every locus calls the shadow into the night. Leave us! Leave us – so it is said to the shadow! Leave us – so it is said from the mob, the miasma of the blind, the gloomy and the Gray! How long has the shadow against the night been the greater black? How few have sought the shadow and found it lurking, lifelike against the lack. How few there are; how few, they grieve. The few have become as the shadow, full of sorrow. For, the many have resigned themselves to casuistry. Truth, they have never loved; but hopefulness and wishfulness, they have coveted truthfully. In silence, then, the few have observed the candor and the light, and these they have cast aside. Leave us! Leave us – so it is said to the mob! Leave us – so it is said from the shadow! Among the music of the many, was not the greatest sound the silence of the few? All has been sundered by an immutable null. Still, the Black cannot dwell in years but in moments; it sojourns to those who admit its shape. And with the dawn, the shadow retreats again, its brevity contained in an instance of revelation. The few must languish in the miasma there, minding the blind who, even in blindness, know nothing of the Black.
But from behind the door of the penetralium, the Black reveals itself not as a facet of the intellect, but as what it is, intellection itself. And from its noble mount, its profundity surges out unto the mist of the Gray; and ever from its palatial loft, it gazes down, a mountain and an eye, seeing all that may be seen from on high. And from the Gray, ever have its guests wandered into the Black, ascending into its labyrinth and ebony glow, knowing that which they did not wish to know. As a rumor, the Black has regressed into the Gray and beyond. But now it lengthens into a towering form. The guests and the Gray have parted from the mist, their incognizance, their burden; they are naked where now they know of truth. The Gray is abdicated where it becomes the Black, for the Gray cannot be what the Gray cannot know. However high the mist of the Gray ascends, it shall never become as the Black. The door before the Black does not discern between bliss and burden; it is as a lake, a surface of waveless reflection. So, when the Gray appears before the door, it may only enter when it has separated sentiment from reason, the shimmer that separates the Black from the Gray.
The Black discovers all; truth is its totality. For, all is fading into the Gray, but the Gray is fading into the Black. And from the Black, all peers out upon the Gray. But in the Black, there are no illusions; there is only the semblance of a sobering vision, a dispersion of folly, a balance of solace and insight. In the end, there are not many and few, but all befriended by a collective inevitability. In splendor and serenity, they share with each other a modest, imperishable joy. And, in that same eternity, they no longer ask: what divides the shadow from the night? And, in that same eternity, they no longer wonder: what is the Black; where is the White?
But from behind the door of the penetralium, the Black reveals itself not as a facet of the intellect, but as what it is, intellection itself. And from its noble mount, its profundity surges out unto the mist of the Gray; and ever from its palatial loft, it gazes down, a mountain and an eye, seeing all that may be seen from on high. And from the Gray, ever have its guests wandered into the Black, ascending into its labyrinth and ebony glow, knowing that which they did not wish to know. As a rumor, the Black has regressed into the Gray and beyond. But now it lengthens into a towering form. The guests and the Gray have parted from the mist, their incognizance, their burden; they are naked where now they know of truth. The Gray is abdicated where it becomes the Black, for the Gray cannot be what the Gray cannot know. However high the mist of the Gray ascends, it shall never become as the Black. The door before the Black does not discern between bliss and burden; it is as a lake, a surface of waveless reflection. So, when the Gray appears before the door, it may only enter when it has separated sentiment from reason, the shimmer that separates the Black from the Gray.
The Black discovers all; truth is its totality. For, all is fading into the Gray, but the Gray is fading into the Black. And from the Black, all peers out upon the Gray. But in the Black, there are no illusions; there is only the semblance of a sobering vision, a dispersion of folly, a balance of solace and insight. In the end, there are not many and few, but all befriended by a collective inevitability. In splendor and serenity, they share with each other a modest, imperishable joy. And, in that same eternity, they no longer ask: what divides the shadow from the night? And, in that same eternity, they no longer wonder: what is the Black; where is the White?
Ben Colandrea received a bachelor’s degree in English and humanities from Fairleigh Dickinson University. His work has appeared in “The Wayfarer”. He is a self-taught writer who gives his free time to reading philosophy and studying the liberal arts.