Companions

 
Companions

It was past the midnight hour
when I noticed they were there—
my ghostly twin companions—
and they gave me quite a scare.

I was walking in the park then,
with these beings by my sides.
They lengthened, twinned and faded
and then strengthened with my strides.

They were shadows from the lamplights,
they were shadows from the moon.
They were shadows that were absent
when I’d walked about at noon.

They were beings of the nighttime
that would suddenly appear.
They would change in length and darkness
and then fade and disappear.

******
 
And in time I grew accustomed
to their presence, and I thought—
they are kin to me, these shadows,
in the dance of maya caught.

For the self that I have treasured
is a shadow in the dance,
projected, of a being
that is also in a trance.

And that being is a shadow
of the being that has cast
its figure on the streaming
that is future, present, past.

Or so I speculated,
as I walked with shadow-mates,
as they also might have wondered
on their origins and fates.

******
 
One may question if a shadow
could be sentient, but I ask—
are we owners of our sentience
or the fabric of its mask?

We are digits in a sequence
that will never have an end.
We may point to a beginning,
but we only can pretend.
 
We are shadows of the shadows
of the shadows of yet more.
There are shadows that will follow
and the ones that went before.

It was past the midnight hour
when the shadows spoke to me,
in the silence of the nighttime,
of the things we cannot see.
 
2016 October 15th, Sat. 12:48 am
Bensonhurst Park, Brooklyn, New York
(last five stanzas added October 18th, Tue.)