Empty bottles haunt my desk today. September sunlight pulses through the white shutters. I’m reminded to check the news to reconfirm chaos. And as the coffee cools, I notice the outlines of shadows traced along a music stand, the tile floors, and watercolor walls.

And I know I, too, have a shadow. It follows me. It studies me. It knows me.

Recently, it found its way inside me. And now, I’m not just sunlight, I’m a deeper power like an aquifer underneath the surface that waited years for a well to be dug.

Because the secret of a shadow isn’t its darkness: it’s the subtlety. The subtlety with which to walk in lock step with the light.

It’s how each year, my shadow steps into summer creek water where cattails linger around schools of minnows. He watches as leaves fall like empires. He waits as cold rebuilds kingdoms while bare trees open like hands begging for mercy. And like spring blooms from under the nail beds of Earth, I will pray to keep living like I am dying. Like it won’t last.

Like it’s a future worth living for.