Shadowless

Though I endured her at least 14 times, Winter only introduced herself to me once during those long years in the Midwest. I remember standing in my backyard near our ancient oak, where rough bark had been worn smooth in at least three places from bums and memories. My dad was there too – were we raking?

In Wisconsin, if we left the leaves on the ground through the winter, they’d mold and stink from wet hibernation beneath the incubated snow, and in the spring fungus would curl her yellowed feathers where the grass should be. So we would rake and rake until blotted pink blisters bubbled out of the soft skin adjacent to thumb knuckles, and yellowed calluses tried their very best to armor the upper-part of palm where fingers grow.

I had let my rake slide down beneath my armpit to take stock of the leaf pile and perhaps nurse a blister. I looked up at the cold grey November sky, and I spotted them: the first snowflakes. Excitement rose to bursting in me, that I should enjoy the first flake fall on virgin ground. I held out my hands and spun, laughing.

“Dad, it’s Winter!”

“Yep.” But he hadn’t stopped raking. He must have met Winter before, I considered. His taciturn jadedness spoke nothing to my pleasure, though, and I watched the sky with wonder akin to glory. Even after reveling in the moment for quite more than a moment, I was strongly averse to the idea of going inside. I remember now, with an aloof and understanding smile, how disinclined the girl-I was to forsake the sanctity of Winter’s very first snowfall that I had witnessed and shared in.

I’m remembering it nostalgically this morning because I woke to a cement sky, and considered the way Winter introduces herself here. It is far different. More sly, less romantic. Who was it that told me that ghosts go shadowless? When Winter steals my trees’ shadows by spreading thick cold-cream over the sky, I know she’s arrived – forcing verdant trees to relinquish life and murmur listlessly as anxious, shadowless ghosts for five months. And the sun, like Peter’s Wendy, appears in the spring to sew back their shadows and offer life.

But it’s not Winter here yet. The bricks have fallen away from the sky now, and thick yellow (less bright; yelling harvest) buttered the sky until it sprouted blue. Now trees cast their shadows on the ground beneath, and I know that there is life in them still. I consider the changing of shadows. None lasts, or even remains the same throughout a day . . .

Sometimes, my heart feels shadowless. I wonder where the Sun is that gives it passion, voice, hunger, SHADOW. Hearts change in season, like trees. I can feel the Sun melting my aortic valve and casting a shadow across my lung. My throat feels the dawn rising again . . . Please, Light, come. I'm ready.

"'For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.' We can't take the lightning, the scourge of high places and rare airs. But we can take the light, the reflected light that shines up the valleys on creeks" (Dillard, Pilgrim, 101).

"For God alone my soul waits in silence (SHADOWLESS-NESS);
from Him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
My fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken" (Psalm 62:1-2).

Life is fragile, quickly passing. Lord, You remain. That alone gives me cause to worship.