I have been working on this poem for some time. The subject it deals with is very heavy, as it deals with the topic of immortality, and the relationship between it and the dark night of the soul. The content of the poem may be uncomfortable. But it is important to deal with all the parts of the dark night, since they exist not independently but in a relationship with one another. Simultaneously we have male sexuality, death, suicide, contempt of self, self-negation, and self-sacrifice: and, on the other hand, immortality.
As you can see, John of the Cross is the major influence on this work. Aside from the initial quote from him ("In this sepulcher of dark death must one abide..."), there are references to his writing:
Those abyssal waters!
That afflictive blackness!
These images of water and darkness are major images of John of the Cross:
"[A]t times the waters make such inundations that they overwhelm and fill everything" (Ch IX)
"The Divine assails the soul (...) and absorbs it in deep and profound darkness" (Ch VI)
"[L]eaving it empty and in darkness, it purges and illumines it with Divine spiritual light, although the soul thinks not that it has this light, but believes itself to be in darkness" (Ch VIII)
To be no longer human
But not yet divine.
This is from one of his meditations:
"Having attained liberty of spirit (...) it (the soul) went forth from low things to high; from terrestial, it became celestial; from human, Divine." (Ch XXII)
It is not a pain of the body.
It is not a pain of the mind.
Sighs do not relieve it, and
Neither do groans or cries.
These lines are a more vague reference to John of the Cross. And, arguably, he is getting his concept here from the Old Testament:
"This roaring implies great pain (...) filling it (the soul) with spiritual pain and anguish in all its deep affections and energies, to an extent surpassing all possibility of exaggeration" (Ch IX)
And forsake this house with its domestics
This refers to the abduction of the spirit out of oneself when it deals with the violence of the dark night:
"It was a happy chance for this soul that on this night God should put to sleep all the domestics in the house - that is, all the faculties, passions, affections and desires which live in the soul, both sensually and spiritually" (Ch XIV)
There are other references in the poem, not to John of the Cross:
He drinks from the cup of trembling
Isaiah
Makes a tree of the living wood.
The Tarot
This long entombment,
The narrative of Christ's burial, entombment, and resurrection: understood mystically.
Another thing I had in mind as I wrote it, although it may not be so clear, is the Paschal Troparion:
"Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing life!"
This is from a very old, more mysterious, Greek Christianity.
