Memories Of My Shadow

Memories of My Shadow

By Tom Swart

Thoughts From Chautauqua Ave
Stumpwood NY (formally Lakewood NY)

The dawn has brought the morning
And the warmth of a new day.
As the dew glistens and quivers
I sense a strange new vibration.

The early mist bathes me as the
Moments of my life come remembered.
Like jewels in the sun they dance around me,
And bring my old roots to laughter.

So many years I have stood here,
Your old soldier against time.
So many storms I have weathered,
In my clinging to this earth.

I hear the echos of my youth,
When you too were young.
When first we felt the spring,
So many years ago.

I felt the sorrows as you passed,
With your own sad memories,
I felt too the joys,
As your children were born.

They would play around me
As they passed through childhood.
They would lean against me,
As first kisses brought them to a new age.

But now the time has come
Where you will bare witness to this day.
A day when there were no legions
No armies to protect me.

The moment draws closer now.
The weapons of progress come ready.
The sharp tongues sting me,
They tear at my flesh, and my core.

The tools scream and spit,
And rip my life from me.
Their contempt consumes me
As my weakened shadow grows smaller.

I have no defense, no armor.
I have nothing that can bend
These harpoons, these barbs
That cut, slash and burn.

As I bleed with my own sadness.
I hear other distant cries
The ground trembles softly
As my old friends meet their end.

They too have felt the steel,
as progress bares down against them.
They too have felt the sting
As they fall prey to a thousand cuts.

The air becomes consumed,
Loud snaps and cracks fill our ears,
As the energy of a hundred trips
Around the sun is released.

Through these cries my youth comes to me,
as does the breath of a 100 springs,
The showers of a 100 summers, and
The chorus of a thousand doves.

But now there is only silence and dust.
The wind no longer dances with me.
The sun can not find me.
My breath no longer fills your lungs.

There are no songs from my canopy,
No more births upon my branches,
No more trepid first flights ,
No more colors for your fall.

Will you ever return to this spot
Where in your youth you
Played and chipped at my skin,
Where the initials of your love grew old.

Will you be more cautious
With the following generations.
Will you be more thoughtful
As you plant the next seed.

Will you miss me,
As this new seed grows?
will you long for me,
and cry out for my old shadow?

Will you miss my beauty.
Will you will miss the trees.
Will you miss the moment
When you could have said no.