Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines by Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas grew up skipping school to go streaking down his very civilized and upper-class neighborhood, and in truth he probably never really did grow up at all in his entire life, dying eventually after a long series of whiskey-fueled joke-telling and late night drunken pranks at the expense of anybody, his enemies included with his best of friends, his editors and publishers, even himself.

He died young, alcohol related. He died sweating and laughing. His most famous line and poem is, "Do not go gently into that good night," nor did he.

The one poem that always struck me like verses of prophets hand-delivered directly from God, is "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines."

Even in darkness, he celebrates the rage and blood and sweat of mankind to endure. Not enough time in the day for sadness. It is as though our bones are kindling and our spirit a fantastic match stick, making the candle of our eyes glow with glorious fire and light across the shadows of the horizon.

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

By Dylan Thomas

Light breaks where no sun shines;

Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart

Push in their tides;

And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,

The things of light

File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs

Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;

Where no seed stirs,

The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,

Bright as a fig;

Where no wax is, the candle shows it's hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;

From poles of skull and toe the windy blood

Slides like a sea;

Spout to the rod

Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,

Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;

Day lights the bone;

Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin

The winter's robes;

The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,

On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;

When logics die,

The secret of the soil grows through the eye,

And blood jumps in the sun;

Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.