Darkness visible

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" No light, but rather darkness visible " 

                                        - John Milton 

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                                      (Paradise Lost)

The streetlights are out for the second night in a row. If seeing is truly believing, nothing exists beyond me sitting here, peering over my laptop screen to catch only my reflection in the window opposite as the darkness outside seems to be swallowing everything in its path. 

I am moored by the light and its ability to make the darkness simultaneously visible and invisible. I must acknowledge it so that I might also see the darkness. At its edge, the darkness is infinite: home of the mythological, clandestine, dead, and lurking. It could be everything and nothing, a harbinger of fear, a metaphor for despair. Plundering its drama, myths, and its ability to amplify silence to a constant and tinnitus-like drone. I photograph the same streets, day and night, that I have always walked. In the morning, the seeing world’s existence is restored. The sun grounds us in the day, as do house lights and streetlights in the night.
This photosynthesis takes and wakes us from our sleep. the darkness that once kept the lurking now lurks itself, behind and in the shadow of things. Although we cling to the security that light imposes and feel safe, we sleep with our eyes closed. Why is this ignorance bliss?