In the following poem, I endeavored to imitate Angelina Grimke’s haunting poem “Tenebris,” which contrasts light and darkness as well as blackness and whiteness through the metaphor of a tree scratching against the side of a house. The poem uses contrasts to emphasize the metaphorical message of racial tension and “otherness” which lies behind the poem, and uses a fragmented and dark image to express the tensions between the symbol and it’s underlying meaning. In my poem, I used the contrast between ice and fire to express the tension between language and the absence of it. Silence is equated with snow and “lifeless” loneliness, whereas speech is equated with warmth, fire, and a wild restlessness. The metaphor of the warm fireside, which is “inside” both the mind and an imagined house, conjures an image of security from the harsh elements outside, i.e. the icy snowdrift. The silence is then equated with frigidity, with something negative which threatens and freezes the body, cutting it off from activity and warmth. The tongue (either a literal tongue for speech or a “tongue” of flame) eats away at this coldness and quiet, just as the tree in Grimke’s poem “plucks and plucks” at the bricks of the white man’s home. The metaphors in both poems, I believe, serve to complicate and fragment the image, interweaving them with the meaning they endeavor to reveal to the audience. Also, they personify not only the images, but the ideas, giving them an active sort of “life” in the confines of the metaphor; the tree of “Tenebris” has hands and fingers, and my poem’s fire has a tongue with which it can express language.
Lux
There is a fire, inside,
Which, outward,
Kindles a warmth,
A tongue quick and fiery
With language wild and fiery.
Throughout the soul,
Against the lone, icy silence,
In the warm light’s hearth,
The tongue flickers and flickers
At the snowdrift.
The snow is grave-quiet and lifeless.
Is it a warm fireside,
Or a passionate tongue?
