Issue 10.2 Spring 2015

10.2 cover image

 

 

The Shade of Her Shadow

 

Joe Rice

 

In the shade of her shadow, I struggle with serenity,
Roped above the chasm of what is and what ought to be,
Of what I can do to make all things change,
And in doing so in time make all things same,
But I fail so, fail so, fail so much,
By the reminder that's time, an invention by us.

 

In the shade of her shadow, I suffer the slings,
These thoughts, words, and deeds, such melancholy things,
Moving me to motion, crutches be springs,
Brought about in moments where the spoken word sings.

 

In the shade of her shadow, sadness arrives,
As time passes by and departs from our lives,
Wish horses ride into the cold light of day,
Begging to be born in their halcyon age.

 

In the shade of her shadow, sickness sets in,
Nothing so fitting as an end to begin.
The seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days,
The nights, the years, the windows, the waves,
Crash and flow against our separate caves.
Searching this place for the reason we’re made,
Some follow Christ, but we all follow fate. 

 

In the shade of her shadow, don’t thine eyes suffice?
Wisdom and wile and sex do entice.
Warming my heart, wasting my spirit,
Our destiny’s fixed, no reason to fear it.
What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is thine,
Today, here now, a promise in kind,
Tomorrow, dying death, a dramedy divine.   
Flowers in the air once went flowers in my hair,
I wasn’t, I am, I won’t be, I don’t care.  
This life, once so bright, a fleeting light that fades,
And returns again anew in her shadowy shade.

 

 

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