The Shadows

Easy to forget, how shadows

are light’s creatures, out of dark,

out of thinning dark come

delicately, then sharply. Sun puts them there.

True to the last frond, bole, blowing

crest, bush’s perimeter,

by light shaped from darkness

their elegant black duplications

silent, accurate.

On the hot grass, featureless

the woman’s shadow, and the bird’s

in its swift shadow-passage.

Nothing so poor it lacks its dark

companion.

Four senses cannot catch them. Try

to touch one, and touch wood, grass,

or skin; try to hear, and hear

only all sounds. Try to bring

one to your lip.

Or try for fragrance. No, only

sight, just the incredulous eye

deserted by its fellows, can stare

into that dark mirror which

is a shadow.

Strange: the ultimate shadow

cut from imagination, cannot cast

itself across a somber slope.

By which it follows that the valley

requires brightness.

—Josephine Jacobsen