A Question on a Sleepless Night

"In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn."

These lines are some of my favorites from one of my favorite poems, "The Testing-Tree" by Stanley Kunitz.

My question is this: when you've gone through dark and deeper dark, and have not turned, and have got to the end and it's still dark and you're at a dead end--what do you do? Get a shovel and start digging?

Does this question even make sense?

A Thought

O you stars, resonate with
Cold, sparkling scarlet light
Reflect my thoughts on this starlit
Moonless tragic night; wish
On me that I might crush
Life from the heavens,
Love from the dust;
There is, in the dew-spangled scarlet
Wilting lilting rose-petal, beauty--
And in the simpering rose's dew-
Drops are stars again, warm,
Resonating with the strength of earth,
The love of turf, the beauty
Of family. Why then turn we
Our thoughts on high? Where
In the cold nameless heavens--
Silver-sparkled blaring blinking staring
Dripping dewdrops drafted of ice--
Thrice thrown burning home, where
Find we benediction? When in the night
The stars come raining down
Burning holes through holy ground
Suddenly they're warm, and the
Rose-petal dew-drops flare into ice
As all we held sacred
Shows itself false, stares at us
With shadowed eyes and the
Backdrop falls away revealing
All we thought were lies.
And I cry dewdrops from my
Shadowed eyes.