Shadow — of the dark that light must make, begin;
I stood already out where day comes in.
The sun stood high. Along the open ground
Came walkers, and their dark shapes moved around —
Black edges soft beside each passing frame,
No face, no spoken name — yet true the same.
I stopped. That quiet seeing was the seed.
The outline proved them near. I gave it heed,
And looked, and looked again, and would not play.
The path held serious wonders of the day.
As when an ant, so slight upon the stone
You scarce can see her, walks — and not alone:
Her shade walks too, a giant on the wall,
A marching king, though she herself is small.
Her body is a speck. Against the light
Her outline grows a people dressed in night.
So grew each walker. Little made the large.
I learned the quieter law, and kept my charge:
A slender foot can cast the greater awe;
The dark runs past the shape that made the law.
Not form alone — the outline keeps a throne
For any heart that looks, and makes it known.
Then came the harder gift. I asked the cause.
No shade without the sun. The dark that draws
Its wonder still needs gold to throw it near.
Two gifts at once — the bright, the blank — appear
Together. Neither stands alone. The twin
Wonder is this: the light has put within
The world the dark that teaches. Hide the sun,
And outline goes, and all the seeing's done.
I spoke soft to the twin that walked with day:
"Stay with me — bright and dark — and do not stray.
You are not less than morning. You are art —
The world is drawn by you." It took no part
In words. It answered only by its stay,
And needing light to be, and not to play.
Shadow — of the dark that light must make —
Was spent outdoors, where both the twins partake.
I kept my watch. The outline held its charge:
Attend what dark can teach when light is large,
And every edge between the two is speech —
The serious gift the morning came to teach.