Shadows
Feb 2 2020
Eclipse
In
the path of totality
where
day is plunged into night
and
the cosmos laid bare,
it's
not the racing shadow
that
evokes my breathless wonder.
It's
the precise geometry
of
orbit, distance, circumference
that
would seem to defy chance,
how
improbable
two
heavenly objects
would
so perfectly overlap.
The
moon, just covering the sun,
revealing
to its privileged observers
the
sun's magnificent corona
enclosing
a black bottomless disc.
Not
that I believe
in
intelligent design.
Or
that the universe is intentional
with
us at its centre.
But
is anything more moving
than
a total eclipse of the sun?
To
witness the play
of
shadow and light?
To
appreciate our smallness
on
this insignificant planet
in
the vast blackness of space?
Your Shadow
And
the shadow
that
followed you all through life,
as
inseparable an appendage
as
an arm or a leg.
Flat
and
inexact
and
changing according to light;
like
a chalk outline
in
your likeness
that's
not quite you, but close.
That
persists, even after you've departed.
When
I imagine you there
in
the objects and places we shared.
In
the restless nights
when
all is subsumed in darkness.
In
reaching out a hand
as
I try to regain my balance,
only
to grasp at shadows
and
insubstantial air.
To Shadow
How
they shadow me,
the
memories, nostalgia, regrets.
Lurking
like
an ambush animal
who
hunts its prey by stealth,
or
a stalker
ghosting
along in my wake.
The
spectres of the past
hover
above us
rattling
their heavy chains;
or
silently glide behind,
concealing
themselves
and
cleverly shifting shape.
Errant Shadow
It
began as a dark spot
that
might have been caught
if
we'd only thought of it sooner.
A
small suspicious shadow
on
the X-ray they took to be sure,
an
errant cell
that
grew and spread
until
all that was left was darkness.
A
black malignant weight
that
consumed all of the light
until
nothing else remained.
There
was a fascinating item in this week's The Sunday Edition, and
I owe this poem to it. In fact, I stole the idea from this interview:
the idea of exploring “shadow” in its various meanings and uses.
The verb “to shadow”. The shadow of an eclipse. An ominous shadow
on an X ray. A person's actual shadow.
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