Essence Found

I can not find my shadow.
Perhaps,
            she is lost.
Perhaps, she leads a secret life
without me; has left because I move so slowly.

And she misses childhood days
of play.
Haven’t I since neglected her?
Didn't I outgrow her?
Abandon her along with dolls
and toys and games?

And can a shadow exist without
notice?

Maybe, now she follows someone
new.
Someone small
who still
skips and runs. 
Someone young enough to know
just what a sun-glimmer can do and sees
what happens in its absence.

Or, maybe, she’s gone and made a life for herself.
Free of codependence, she’s found herself,
at last.
Found herself where unneeded, undone
        shadows gather.

Never again behind,
but side by side,
silhouettes pirouetting, winding
their long, lean
gray bodies whichever way they like.

No longer flat abstraction, they need no reason.

Perhaps, stray shadows, once removed
from ownership, undergo a metamorphosis
and their ashen limbs stretch and stretch,
into rainbow wings and high
           above the treetops,

even in the night, they fly, unseen
by human eyes.