shadow country

poem written to the prompt ‘Shadow’ for a monthly workshop I host

It does not matter

where into the wild you flee

your shadow finds you.

It slips beneath cedar boughs,

crosses rivers without getting its feet wet,

waits behind abandoned barns while you take a pee.

_____

Mother told you to be home before dark.

Father slipped off his belt. You did not ask questions.

Refugee of childhood traumas,

your shadow disappears into the night

No passports to freedom stamped.

No borders crossed.

Every locked door is a country

you spent your life trying to emigrate from.

Memory is an immigration officer

who never forgets a face.

_____

Hitchhiker on the road without a car,

hand waving at strangers,

thumbs begging for mercy.

Headlights briefly make you visible.

Your shadow stretches over the next hill

…hope is peculiar that way.

Fence posts count your failures.

Phone wires share your secrets

with the wind and ask you to believe

someone will save you.

_____

An owl calls a warning before soaring.

You begin to understand that your shadow

is not the hunter you imagined as a child,

but rather a companion stitched to your heels

carrying every version of you

that survived your childhood.

Everyone loves the night

sound of a train in the distance.

Its lonely whistle reminds us

there is somewhere besides here.

_____

Morning comes quietly. First light dresses

your shadow and tells you where to stand.

Both belong to the same body,

Both looking for the long road home.

Together, you walk calmly into the wilderness.

One in brightness, one in faithful darkness.

7-13-26