---
title: "A Calculation of Dark"
url: "https://ruthocallaghan.com/poems/a-calculation-of-dark"
updated: 2026-10-12
description: "\"A Calculation of Dark\", a poem by Ruth O'Callaghan from An Unfinished Sufficiency."
---

# A Calculation of Dark

In this ruined light – the dark leaking into the garden\
as if light were an interloper

whose presence, no longer desired,\
is sequestered to other places – the urgency of shadow

conspires, determines cross-woven words that lie\
in the gap between desire

and undisclosed restraints.\
Such absence is mocked by the schack-schack of jay

concealed in the elderberry beyond the boundary wall\
but a quiver of leaves betrays

as will a breath, caught,\
or the silk-split of a leaf loosed from its stem.

_From An Unfinished Sufficiency (Salmon Poetry, 2015)_