A shadow follows each small step we take;
Each step-by-step, maintaining continuity
between moments it lingers with us, watching
us, as we are separated by gaps
bridged by our shadows.
If your attention wavers, like a candle flame
it flickers—but does not go out;
nor do we ever cease, though our presence
gutters in the world often, as before
a sad wind; no,
the shadow does not leave us, there
is no escape. Only being, and nothingness.
The shadow is the nothingness that rests
within the moments we fail to perceive,
but within which we are seen, and seen to be
Just one more soul who cannot see himself.
You hold two shadows, there, at least,
when standing right before me:
One I see, and one I cast, and both are you
but both are also I, and none is free.
And when I go, your shadow lingers still,
and watches you go back to dwell
within yourself. And when you pass again
into the light, it may seem to vanish;
but it has only entered you,
and now you are it, and it is for you,
for itself.
And so on and again, into the light, and back
you go—casting shadows and watching them
concatenate, watching your identity form
a linear progression, not seeing all the holes
wherein there was nothing, where you were empty.
We are, like this, shadow-puppets
unable to see our true selves;
unable to be together, to find meaning,
connection, truth. Only the whisper
of the film that’s piling slowly on the floor
beside that gently unspooling reel marks
the passing of our precious moments.
When it is done, you will cease to be,
to change, to move between one state
and another. You will be a dead thing
and a memory, unable then to ever catch
your shadow and confront it.
Why are you so alienated from it?
If you don’t believe you have such a shadow,
then you have not looked behind you
for the nothings and the deaths
of your past selves. They have left
their mark on you, and on others.
But if you have seen it, then maybe you know—
it isn’t all yours. No, it has your mother’s eyes
and your father’s arms, your brother’s conceit
and your sister’s qualms, your unforgiven sins
spoken in so many other peoples’ voices,
on its own lips—it isn’t your shadow that follows you
step by step; no, no. You have watched
them watch you; it is the shadow of their grief,
of their love, of their disgust.
So you see, you don’t really die, except that
you stop living. But your gaze still falls on those
you judged, your hands still touch, your voice still rings within
the hearts you moved—like they were discrete things
separate from you!—and once your last feeble stutters
coldly stop, only your shadow remains.
It isn’t really you—merely a copy of an idea that you held
as steward, castellan of the fortress of shame
and regret, lord of Nothing. The ghost you will leave
is only the specter of your worries, as they were cast
upon others. Not all bad, perhaps—your shade
might be a friend, a lover. But it is not you,
cannot be you, the thing that lives;
you are sense and sentiment, reflection
and anxiety. The shadow cannot take
steps. It has no attention to give. It watches
without seeing.
If you can, look into its eyes—see that it has none.
But you have eyes, and so do I, and perhaps
we do not need to be slaves to our shadows
any more. If I can see you without watching you,
love you without changing you, feel you without
grasping you, then perhaps; perhaps despair
is in holding on, and salvation is in faith.
I, for one, do not think there is a life
without darkness; nor seeing without
being seen. To be loved is to change,
and to die is to become immortalized
in sand. I think we must live with our
shadow-demons, learn to know them
and forgive the fear they cause.
We are only human, after all.