The Empty Land

C.S. Lewis wrote of grief that it was like: "A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The long you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it every inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as through as this. "

And I was also thinking (at the end of the poem) of: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

Grief and depression are kindred spirits, and reflecting on that gave rise to this poem.

The Empty Land

The star light flickers far away
I’m shut within a wall
Depression, doubt and crucified
The future seems so small

I may not know, I cannot tell
The darkness and the fear
It comes sometimes to all of us
A black dog shadow’s there

There seems no ending, not enough
No room left at the inn
But walled enclosures, bolted gate
And I will never win

The wind is blowing, now beloved
And I must follow too
And trust in hands held in the dark
And unknown way with you