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From: sara@mhuxj.UUCP (TRIGS)
Newsgroups: net.poems
Subject: poem
Message-ID: <391@mhuxj.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Aug-86 23:43:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxj.391
Posted: Thu Aug 14 23:43:58 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Aug-86 07:13:20 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 21

A Problem of Shadows- for Charlotte Elena

On our evening walk
inexplicable shadows grow about us
nets of branches and leaves, huge trunks
thrown down in our path, strange, dark
elongated likenesses of ourselves.
You are frightened by your own shadow,
sometimes behind, sometimes in front of you,
now vanishing suddenly under a light.
It is no use to offer the explanations
of scientists; for you these phenomena
are still magical, in your eyes, still
the wild lights. Not wishing to hurt your shadow
stepping on it, you stop, still. Now there are
no practicalities of destination, only
existential terror, existential pity.
And am I now to help you over the magic of this
vague, airy thing that clings to your body
and will cling for as long as you are in the light?
by Jeffery Alan Triggs