The Shadow She Held

Preface

This poem was inspired by Edmund Blair Leighton’s painting The Shadow (1909). In the scene, a knight in chain mail stands quietly beside a castle wall while the woman he loves traces the outline of his shadow with a piece of charcoal. In the distance, a ship waits in the harbor, hinting at a journey that will soon take him away, perhaps to battle, and giving quiet urgency to her attempt to capture his form before he leaves.

When I first looked at the painting, the moment felt strangely familiar despite the centuries that separate it from the present.

I thought about my own departure for war in a distant land, and the quiet moment before leaving when someone I loved held my arm in much the same way.

The armor may become a uniform and the waiting ship a transport plane, but the human experience remains unchanged: the attempt to hold onto someone, if only for a moment longer, before they step into an uncertain distance..

The Shadow (1909) Edmund Leighton

The Shadow She Held

I stopped before the painting

just to rest a minute,

and there she was.

A lady in silk

standing by a stone wall,

touching the shadow

of a man not there.

Light leaned across the stone

like late afternoon.

Her finger moved slow

along the outline...

helmet,

shoulder,

the straight proud fall

of a knight

cut from light.

Not the man himself.

Only the shadow he left.

Behind her

a small boat waited

on quiet water.

The sail half raised.

The water barely moving.

The shore already letting go.

Something about it

felt familiar,

the quiet before a long leaving.

Maybe he rode off to battle.

Maybe to glory.

Maybe down one of those far roads

men take

when they believe the world

is calling them.

She traced that shadow careful -

like she was learning him

by heart.

Like if she followed the line

true enough

he might step down

from the wall

and stay.

But shadows don’t step down.

They stretch longer

when the sun goes low.

Standing there

I understood her.

Centuries between us,

yet the same goodbye.

Because once

I stood on another shore.

Not stone walls

an airport gate.

Not a quiet boat

a gray transport plane

waiting to carry us

to a war

on the far side of the world.

Engines humming low

through the concrete floor

like distant thunder.

Someone I loved

held my arm that same way -

not stopping me,

not asking me to stay -

just touching

like she was remembering

the shape of me.

Men say they leave

for duty,

for country,

for honor.

But the ones who stay behind

are the ones

who learn what shadows are.

Now we draw them differently.

Not on castle stone

but on glowing screens,

old photographs,

old messages,

names we keep saying

long after the signal fades.

And tonight

looking at that painted lady

I knew what she was doing.

She wasn’t touching stone.

She was holding

the last light of him

before it slipped

from the wall.

GBS jr

2011