I am the shadows of the forest constantly on the prowl
through the undergrowth
at any moment, I will break into a clearing.
Eternal twilight spawns this loam soft fungus moss
under my heels is just a joke. Like my exhaustion.
Light exists. I know it.
The wildflowers and the white moths that fluttered and pollinated
in my shade
weren’t a dream,
their petals and proboscis stalking thirst in the sweetgum hollows.
Sunbeams burst over my body and I disperse because I must.
Scattered like spiny seed balls or the hunter
firing off buckshot.
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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I've never considered the perspective of a shadow.
Shadows moving as a living thing seeking the thing which will destroy it. Sounds as if the shadow is trying to convince itself that it exists. That what it knows is a reality not a dream. In the end it finds the light or vice versa and that causes it's end. This makes me think of life in general. We often go through life trying to convence ourselves that what we believe is true. It also seems that all to often we seek that which will destroy us. In the end we all disperse from this earth.
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Are you a tree?
A guess at the subject of the poem. A very well written and interesting poem at that. I enjoyed it very much. -
Prey Tell.
The exhaustion of the Chase - being pursued. Paranoid? What if not...
"their petals and proboscis stalking thirst in the sweetgum hollows."
With a beautiful line like that dogging my heels I´d be hard pressed to seek sanctuary elsewhere.
What DOES nourish you? The light - being a dusk shadow as you are or
Or is the CONTRAST. The hue betwixt light and shade. The chiaroscuros of obscure boundaries, wan borders between what we see and what we sense.
A flurry of white moths flew from the pile of kindling I was gathering today.
They scattered towards the shadows.
I felt the buckshot like a cat-o-nine-tails striping my spine as I do every day.
Too much light will kill a moth - the wise ones seek the dark.
Just in case.
gG
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Hi Simon. This is one of those pieces that I wrote in a single fell swoop, no pause for reflection, just one of those strange half-drowned fragments that float up on the surface of my watery consciousness. The title is from, Quod me nutrit, me destruit, "What nourishes me also destroys me," but I thought it would be unbearably pretentious of me to title a poem in Latin-- questionable Latin at that. It's not an ancient saying-- no one is entirely sure where the phrase comes from. Some apocraphyl tale claims that it was written on the supposed grave of Christopher Marlowe.
Anyway, I feel very haggard of late. Life dogs me, but I am also the hound. I saw myself as a shadow on the floor of the forest, seeking light. But to a shadow, light is also destructive. Hence, what nourishes me also destroys me. Knowledge sustains, but it also punishes. Hence the "scattering" images at the end-- the shadow being dispersed, the hunter catching his prey.
We just can't seem to get away from circles, can we? That ouroboros just insists on biting our tail.
The wise ones seek the dark, but sometimes, the light is irresistable.
Lauren
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