Shadows on the Water

Susan Kim

I

Out of what hell or death has it come to appear

at the edge of the pond at the moment when

I look down and see through the summer briars

The shadow there? Out of what horror has it come

To plague my everyday with its weightless

silence, the silence that tears a hole in normalcy,

the doubt that washes over the backyard chores –

raking and mulching, weeding and watering –

controlling the dandelion seeds that blow skyward

and make me drop the pail and wish I could follow,

escape with my voice and my sanity intact,

drift, toward the shadow itself, beginning?

II

Why wouldn't I – against the brightness of kids,

cardinals, sunshine – be drawn to the shadows

atop the driveway's puddles, the reflections

of dark, moving leaves, of people I could know

years from now? The shadows hold for me the songs

of future adventures, the unsaid conversations

that make up the unscripted  part of my life,

the knotted tomorrows, the bends in the road

that will show themselves after a little darkness.

III

My shadow stretches ridiculously long and bendy,

off the dock and into the water, my knees at rest

then tousled by the wake of a tricked-up speedboat

full of fishermen who nod their hellos and leave me,

again, with my own 15-foot self, the weightless woman

that lies airily over the water and, somehow, stays on top.

The sun is rising and my shadow is shortening

just as I've gotten used to its awkward proportions,

just as I'm on the brink of translating its first words

which the whole time have been my words, the ones

I was afraid to say – or, no, didn't know I wanted to say --

didn't know I'd be surprised into deeper water-dances

that etched me as a person I couldn't fathom

the shadow of myself, the shadow on the water

that stretches and shortens into a song.

NOW

By Jacque Pickett

Shadows in water,

Dreams drift away

From the reach of memory.

Light seeps through the tightly closed doors

Of the mind,

Relentless, invading the darkness,

My darkness.

What we were, who we were,

Gone.

© 2011 Jacquelyn Pickett

Shadows on water
T McCabe, July 2011

shadows on water hold a double mystery 

of another world that holds different life 

and of a darkness that hides a different truth

The pond in the background of this story is a pond I’ve talked to, we’re good friends. On March 16, 2011 after burying my youngest cousin Gary O’Brien and leaving all my RI relatives I felt torn away from my roots as I drove south on South County Trail and stopped at Barber Pond. The pond and I were both overcast and glum. I took a picture of the pond and had a soulful conversation with my gloomy shadowed friend. The picture became the cover of a memoir I wrote of Gary O’Brien and the conservation is on the closing page.

When you talk to a pond you look into its shadows, like looking into the eyes of your partner in conservation. The pond had some soulful advice for my broken heart that day, but that’s a piece of a bigger story -- you’ll have to buy the book ---- http://www.blurb.com/books/2102430.

Ponds and I go way back, ponds and their shadows play a big role in my life. This story is long overdue.

Be careful here, looking into shadows on water will change you. This is where secrets and keys are hidden. They lurk in the dark boundaries of our consciousness, the shadows of our awareness. When you look you see both ways, like Oedipus you see your own fate in the water. You have to gradually let the story in, like a game of peak a boo with the dark unknown. There in the water’s shadows Erebus lurks, the primordial Greek god of shadows. Like Erebus the dark shadows are the place between heaven and earth, a secret passage way.

-------------------------------------

There’s a duality of early morning shade and early evening shade, they’re twins but not identical twins, they’re born the same but die their own way. Both are transitional sentinels of change, but one is pushed aside and the other melds. Daybreak shade a hearkening of the day to come --- transitory, darkness surrendering to sun light. Evening shade salutes the oncoming tranquility of night -- shadows melding into the dark of evening.

The daytime magic shadows need sunlight for contrast and boundary. The night darkness has shadows only with a full moon, well known for its mysterious pull. Most people mistake the full moon for this magical power; not so, it’s the shadows. Shadows know dark secrets, the 1930’s pulp fiction had it right: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

The most special water shadows have fulltime canopy cover --- this is where the magic is. Dark mysterious truths lurk, even a few fish. You have to sneak up; you want to savor the hidden scene from the every approaching angle. It’s best to carry a fishing rod to legitimize your adventure. It’s the unknown, the mysterious, the hidden, the forbidden, the unseen, the darkness of the water’s soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know where ponds are, never forget, there’re my landmarks, the way I navigate. Others remember street names and route numbers and certainly the name of towns -- what folly; it’s like remembering zip codes and missing cathedrals. I don’t remember any of this dribble, but I can tell you exactly where the ponds are, and something of their nature. I always picture an idyllic scene revisiting the ponds – paying them homage and getting to know them. They each have a distinct feeling, their own character; some have a sense of wonder and warmth. Wild, rough, sheltered, shadowed, calm, deep, cozy, lonely. Hollowed places where you’ll find me at peace, lazily fishing for something I already caught, being home.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fishing is just an excuse to get to know the place
I sit with a pond, and listen
it always speaks with wonderful stories and feelings
mainly of her history, her story
of the ways she changed, who visits, what they feel, what she holds

Then I talk

mainly of my history, my story
of the ways I’ve changed, who I know, what they feel, what I hold

And we become friends