Thoughts from the Shadow

This past Wednesday (September 9, 2020), I – like so many in California’s Bay Area – woke to darkness.

And stayed there.

Unlike anyone else among the ogling locals, my head and heart carried Allyn-a-Dale.

In the hour or so between arrival to my jobsite and clocking in for work, my minstrel and I paced the waterside, gazes upon the ominous shadowscape that would go on to fill the day’s news cycle. Past 7am and, thanks to the smoke of numerous wildfires, it looked like night, but murky. Orange. Malevolent.

My words alone could hardly do it or our visceral reactions justice.

But, naturally, Allyn’s can.

* * *

Where the Shadow Lies

The sun – O woe, the sun! –

Is sick in bed;

It cannot rise.

It stays inside a foggy blanket,

Choked on smoke,

Beneath a shadow lies.

*

I peer through morning

Dark as dusk,

Mist red before my eyes.

I thrill and fear

Whatever’s next,

Here where the shadow lies.

*

I quicken my steps,

But where to run?

How do you flee the skies?

My world to darkness falls again,

And daylight feels a lie.

*

O winds above,

Please blow the haze away;

I beg you try.

Free land from fog and fire

And this dim that terrifies.

*

I watch and wonder,

Wait and worry,

Hush my spirit’s cries.

Our later dawn will brighter be,

Beyond where shadow lies.

*

I’ll not let shadow frighten me.

Where it falls,

There I rise.

(My phone wouldn’t take a photo without trying to compensate for the lack of natural light, so here’s a pic that more accurately represents the morning’s view.)