Shadow Hand

The shadow hand 

fits like skin 

over control 

that my conscious 

mind believes it holds. 

The shadow hand,

full of creative energy,

holds my consciousness still;

words spill out to trace 

 

  a story

    a dream

      a wish 

The page, once blank 

and without thought

hums with life.

“My shadow serves as the friend I crave.”

~ Anna Akhmatova, poet

(1889 ~ 1966)

Sun and Shadow

Usual kindness is like the warm glow of the sun in the morning throwing shadows across streets and alleys, rooftops and trees

In a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, she wrote that ‘you must know sorrow’. 

I didn’t understand 

until 

I remembered sorrows in my life 

and kindness I yearned for, 

kindness offered me 

that gentled

my aching heart with

a cup of tea

a meal

a chance to cry 

a chance to laugh

when energy was arid and spent. 

This odd pairing of kindness and sorrow 

showed me they are 

as mated as sun and shadow.

“Before you know what kindness really is 

you must lose things,”

~ Naomi Shihab Nye, ‘Kindness

Edges of Light

Searching in the dark 

for edges of light, 

my memory reached out 

to touch the wisdom 

of my ancestors

while my heart adjusted

to shadow, to edges of light 

and I knew that I was safe.

“The spirits of the dead may be invoked for the good of the living.”

~ Shinto saying

Shadow Song

I have carried regrets ~ 

the maybe’s and what if’s ~ 

carried them carefully tucked

in my pocket or back pack, 

sheltering them 

as though they were sugar - 

if they got wet they would 

melt and dissolve away ~ 

What if they did?

What would be missing? 

Merely a shadow ~

only the weight of the past.

What wisdom will it impart ~

that shadow of past lives that 

deserve compassion, 

compassion for who I was then, 

even if it was only 

yesterday or 40 years ago. 

So I take the lint from my pockets, 

the crumpled tissues from my back pack 

where old regrets reside.

Setting them out in the sun 

I watch them thaw, dissolve and evaporate 

into the nothingness that they always were.

If I’m not careful, I may just catch a tiny 

piece of regret and just before it vanishes; 

hide it in the folds of my life. 

Yet when sunlight leans over my shoulder,

the shadow pen writes with me 

in a new harmony of words. 

“The shadow escapes from the body like an animal we had been sheltering.”

~ Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation

Stealth

In the quiet of the evening

sun rays slant across the floor

shadowing doors and chairs

backlighting dust motes that drift from sun to shadow always floating just out of reach, too light for me to catch before they land on the picture frame for a dandelion chain or sunflower suggesting that dust bunnies collected under beds and sofas have been borne of these fluffs of innocent stealth that seem to disappear as the sun sets.

“We are but dust and shadow.”

~ Horace, The Odes of Horace

On a Park Stroll ~ Watchers

Before me I watched 

soothing autumn colours

and gently rippled water

while

my shadow watched

behind me to see

calm waters and reflections in

the shadow of the bridge.

“Shadow is a very 

intelligent creature; 

he always finds a way 

to get our attention!”

     ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

     (from goodreads.com)

 

Solitude ~ 2

Standing alone in

reflection and shadow ~

eased by bright light and

cool, flowing water.

“Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”

~ Pablo Picasso

Shadowed

Taking intention for a walk?

What intention?

To just be outside?

To visit a good friend?

To follow the shadow on the wall?

To fill my ‘creativity bucket’ 

pandemic restrictions cramped my style

no roaming all over! merely

circling around the neighbourhood

oh, and the cold - today banished

 - prevented me from roaming at all.

morning’s sunshine shadow on my wall

beckoned me ~ this afternoon

not feeling all that creative I write:

I had been brave ~ I had gone for a walk

without snow boots, but

my ordinary shoes ~ not water proof ~

I avoided puddles! 

slipped/slid on ice crackling over 

thin slicks of snowmelt. 

my body strong, balance kept me 

from frigid muddy puddles 

flowing from dirty snow 

bumping along sidewalks,

mounds of icy snow watering 

the lawns beneath and

fading fast in the warm sunshine.

In the sunshine of 

laughter, coffee and rhubarb upside down cake

the icy tension of isolation from friends faded fast.

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”

~ Hippocrates

'A Stitch in Time'

Effects are not what are heard in the 

out-loud spaces of a day, but can be seen in glimpses from changes made 

in the still light of morning, carried softly or courageously each day.

Effects are not what are wished 

for but are colourful parts of 

the fabric of our beings hinting, 

at shadows or joys never

expected or chosen in each life.

Effects are not what are designed

only reshaped to fit each life be they 

beautiful or plain spoken, filled with 

joy or sadness ~ when stitched 

with gratitude, change can be born.

“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more

 than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 - 1945

Book Review: Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

“I might have been ten, eleven years old - I cannot say for certain - when my first master died.” 

And so opens a story, set between 1830 and 1836, that Esi Edugyan tells through the eyes and heart of eighteen year old George Washington Black, the name he was given by his first master. 

George Washington Black was told he was born in the hold of a slave ship on the passage to America. Wash, the name he was known by, remembers at about age five, when he was ‘rescued’ by Big Kit. Big Kit, a fierce slave on Faith Plantation in Barbados and the only home he had known, saved him from the brutality of another slave. Wash carries Big Kit in his heart throughout this beautifully written novel, despite being separated from her by the many strange and intricate events that carry him away from the cruelty of Faith Plantation. Erasmus Wilde, takes over his deceased uncle’s plantation with cruelty and malice. Titch, Erasmus’ brother, a scientist and covert abolitionist, spirits Wash away by hot air balloon (Cloud-cutter) from Faith Plantation to cross the United States, Canada and the Arctic to escape his brother’s wrath. A wrath that boiled when Wash escaped 'blame' for Erasmus' cousin Philip's suicide. This at a time of extreme racism and slavery. In a few short years, Wash had to become literate, a house boy and scientific assistant. In assisting Titch, he discovered a skill for drawing the biological minutiae of Titch’s scientific explorations which was to become a mainstay for Wash's life.

Unable to attend September’s book club discussion, I have spent a couple of hours reading reviews on line. I’ve also spoken with some of my group regarding their apparently lively discussions about Esi Edugyan’s fascinating novel. My personal fascination with the novel is the intense fear, and often terror, that shadowed Wash throughout his life because his early life of cruelty, brutality and the crushing work of a field hand. His supposed and very confusing ‘freedom’ when his travels take him country to country did little to ease his fears. Wash was always at the mercy of that fear which gives shape to his story, whether in the Arctic with Titch or in Morocco seeking Titch, Wash was never certain who or when he could trust. This book I am reading again to follow with interest the winding path that Washington Black travels just because he was born into slavery ~ always at the bidding of any white man or woman. 

“We must all take on faith the stories of our birth, for 

though we are in them, we are not yet present.”

~ Esi Edugyan, Washington Black

Title: Washington Black

Author: Esi Edugyan

Copyright: 2018 by Ides of March, Inc.

Publisher : Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Format: Soft cover

Type: Novel

ISBN: 978-1-4434-5958-7