A Tribute to Robert Louis Stevenson

Grey,

No, no - black...



Black like a dream.



I watched it.

Folded - heavy outlines

Rose and fell.



A backdrop bleary and bloated with

Pain broke the form.



Cast against the backdrop it fell;

heavy,

twisted and

malformed.



Green withered, charred petals fell; dust remained.



Across the landscape,

Shorter - now longer.

Shorter again.

Wide - now wider.

Lengthening.

Growing.



In its path

Dust.



I never knew my shadow.

I thought it grey.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

I have an issue that has affected my family - hence the poem. Here is the poem by Stevenson to which I refer. It is a happy poem I remember from childhood.
Robert Louis Stevenson
My Shadow
Poem lyrics of My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson.

From Child's Garden of Verses

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

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Ruth Lovejoy's picture

cool piece