Shadow Days

Seconds before the dawn, on early March mornings,

A thick white cloud rolls gently in

Like a prowling cat that walks through unresisting streets.

The passing child can see its face reflected

In still pools--hunkered down and gathering sorrow

Like dust in the broken corners of this world.

---

Every day it creeps around the world,

Pawing at doors tightly shut, signaling the morning.

Every day the windows stay shut, leaking sorrow

Like dripping tears that wouldn’t stay in.

All around the town houses, like faces, reflect

The gathering gloom that mournfully walks the streets.

---

The rumbling beast slinks down the crooked streets

To trap the passions of the world

Under a smothering blanket of endless fog. It reflects

The warm sun’s rays aside and catches the morning’s

Breeze as it filters through the dewy air, in-

To hearts longing for release from sorrow.

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Even the bricks cling to the fog and sorrow,

Crowding the empty drives and streets

With a voice that quietly breaths the heaviness in.

Soon streams begin to trickle through the world,

Constructed from tears of perpetual mourning,

And bleeding into common pools that reflect

---

The depths of hearts still wounded. They reflect

That strange normality, the ever-present sorrow

That never leaves once it settles in. Mornings

Pass and days fly by without a passerby in the streets

To remind us that we are alive in this world.

And yet the great cat still paws in.

---

One day the hulking beast will leave us, in

Great leaps and bounds it will float up, reflecting

Our melancholy in pure blue skies. And then the world

Will be opened like a river to drown out the sorrow

And wash away its memory from the streets,

Unfastening the skies in a glorious morning.

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Old shadows once lived in will break and sorrowfully flee,

But not until the sun’s light reflects through our busy streets,

Shining on a world that’s cast off all its mourning.