WAITING FOR A SHADOW

WAITING FOR A SHADOW*


I watch the muted hue/ of a five-o-clock shadow dapple in the window light/ and marvel: what brings you back, persists, so often, despite? ---Luisa A. Igloria


Pain is a truant seeking for its origin,
it jumps off  walls like sundown shadows,
hackle-raising and intimate, seeking balm
where nothing is offered,  penitently quiet
as some persistent window-tapper pleading
to be let in, where there are no doors to open
nor window sills to lie vigil on waiting, hoping
to come back when there is no longer any home
to grow mellow in, nor a place to leave a threadbare
duffle bag in, stained, empty and won’t be filled again:
this shadow-self might be true only because of  his pain.

 
---Albert B. Casuga

 04-04-12

*A poem response to Luisa Igloria’s poem published in Dave Bonta’s Via Negativa which uses a new form called by its author Allison Joseph “sweetelle” (see VN for explanation). This is poem five in April to celebrate National Poetry Month.