I share the shadow
It is the Lenten season, and for me, a time to look inside. While I don’t always like what I find, I take comfort that there is a “season” for this, that I couldn’t be the only one disturbed in the soul-searching.
Thankfully, it always ends with the Cross, which is sweeter after those hard days of cleaning out the attic.
This poem was first published in Solid Food Press’s beautiful anthology, I Will Set a Place for You.
I share the shadow
I share the shadow
of a leper—
side by side
in grotesque guise
we grovel
after the sun;
the pale splotches
of scarred skins
and curled limbs
hide in the umbra
of our numb;
darkness reddens
our flush
into broken blush,
no one sees
nor would touch
our ghostly soul—
until . . . the shadow cast
and plaguing past
graze the shade
of a forgotten hour
when love was lifted
with mending power
and skinned,
hammered,
crossed
on that eclipsed plateau—
where we share
in the dusk
of its winged shadow.
Beautiful!