The Freedom of Shadows

I found myself watching my shadow

As if discovering it for the first time

I watch how it walked

I watched what it said

(Or at least imagined it out of my head)

Although it looks dark

It takes everything lightly

It is most defined when the sun glows brightly

But at night

It creeps up the wall and stares down from the ceiling

As I read

And then vanishes when I’m sleeping

I thought of how it is to be Kate

I thought of all the deep thoughts

My shadow never bothers to contemplate

I thought of how easy it must be to follow

Not lead

Make decisions

Think

Bleed

I thought how simple the one dimensional life appears.

We apply such pressure to the ordinary self

When nobody expects a shadow to be anyone else

I laughed at the thought

That a shadow could change

And realised

The true freedom a shadow enjoys

Is not having a head that can think

Because

None of this is really important

And in a blink

The light goes out

We go to sleep

And everything

Disappears

Quick as a wink

“Quick as a wink “ My grandfather used to say it all the time.

Header photo palm tree shadows early morning Brisbane botanic gardens. I’m not there though, I’m at home, writing packing lists for a camping trip out west that I have planned. Stars, bush and quiet – I can’t wait. I’ll be sharing snippets in poetry here and longer posts on SubStack (which I’ll link back here) and then entire project with all the photography will be wrapped up and live on my new website when I’ve gathered it all together.

Is a website necessary when I have this poetry journal and SubStack and Flickr and books? Yes, because I have bits and pieces everywhere and wanted to give everything a nice house where they can all go off to work separately but at the end of the day, come home.

The internet is as big as a universe and our work can so easily be lost.

I’ll share the address shortly once I have it all nice and tidy and you can come for a cup of tea – not now though – there are packing boxes everywhere at the moment.

8 thoughts on “The Freedom of Shadows

  1. Lovely piece – so clever in its simplicity, yet thought-provoking. Looking forward to the website, and I’m glad you’re spreading the bits all over the place. It feels genuine, as opposed to the contrived strategies of influencers and social media stars who are always under pressure to post all over the place. The more authentic, heartfelt stuff there is out there, the better 🙂

  2. this is a great piece, Kate: beautifully written and deeply probing on the concept of self and the sacrifices it demands; the shadow is a great metaphor for ‘the head that does not think’ ; o, the rabbit holes thought has taken me down —

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