Small Patches of Light

Small Patches of Light

Bruce Majors

Finishing Line Press

There will be no darkness tonight. – The Message of Snow

There is darkness a plenty in Bruce Majors’ latest collection of poems, but there are also the “small patches of light” which give the book its title. These rays of sunshine, moonbeams, and moments of hope periodically pierce the darkness of depression. To see that light, the author wrestles though bleak depths in a life long battle. In his poem “Responding to Melancholy,” which Majors inscribed as “After Jane Kenyon,” noting the struggles of another poet, he addresses this darkness personified.

…there is a gaping black hole in my chest

where you placed your hook.

Although that darkness is with him always, he struggles without ceasing, perhaps prays without ceasing, buoyed up by a spiritual center and the incredibly beautiful landscape where he resides in rural Tennessee. His poem “Eden” includes a description of that land “where stars storm the night sky.” That land includes outdoor activities which seem to have been a part of his life for all time.

“…after setting jugs for catfish,

it occurred to me,

this could be Eden.”

Always though, like an inhabitant of “The Wasteland” as portrayed by T.S. Elliott, he feels a shadow fall. It obscures the light in a way perhaps best described in Majors’ poem “Wasted Night.”

“My boatload of dreams sinks

like loggerheads, to wallow in the murky bottom

lying indisposed among weeds.”

There are many poets who could tell this tale. Few could tell it as well as Bruce Majors.