Shadows in the Sunroom

By Paul Roberts

Spring is coming. My impatience cannot stop it. The inexorable crawl of my world through its spinning path, of the stars through their paces, of this arm of our twisting galaxy, is unaffected by my concern that spring will come too late, jinxed by my own thoughts of “will it ever get here?”

I’ve also been impatient with myself recently, teasing my inner creative child about the lack of poetry progress. I’d love to just play with language more often than I do, just respond to the moment and throw some words at the page and see what sticks.

I think I’m discovering that part of my process for making that happen is to use pen and paper, not my computer, when I want to “let fly” with some imagery. My morning routine includes pen and paper, starting my day with sowing seeds on the page. Once in a while, I look back at my journal and I’m reasonably pleased with what I find there…

March 1st, 2023

…Spring is coming. The morning sun fills this sunroom on a day like today. Almost too bright to sit here at this time of day. The power of the sun at the top of Everest burns in spite of the cold…kind of an interesting metaphor in there somewhere.

Shadows in the Sunroom

Season changing sunlight

flows into my room

making the page too bright.

I turn my back to the 

window, create shadows

that fall into my lap like

a story from Plato; I see

still shadows, but

they have no meaning, no life,

until life flits in. Shadowy

still, but clearly life.

The shadows of the feeder

hanging from its chains, dangling

a plate of cold, frozen grains for

the birds that come to find it,

mean…nothing…until life 

in the form of one small wren

arrives for morning breakfast, dipping

its beak into the bowl, balancing

movement with tail and wings, rocking to

and fro, safe from the cat on this 

side of the window.

I watch the shadow in my lap,

enjoying the dance of that small bit of life,

and wonder why I am satisfied with

seeing only shadow. 

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Look back…way back, if you want to…at some journaling or writing you’ve done in the past. Keep looking until you find something you like, then be brave and share it with someone else.
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