I've begun to walk with my shadow self
I've watched the dark outline of myself
and my self
in the soft morning light,
face turned to the gentle breeze
should there happen to be one
I've seen it crouch nearly beneath my feet
in the blazing noonday sun
Together we have wandered,
this quiet companion and I,
in the mystic glow of moonlight,
as well as the harsher glare of streetlights
And I've wondered about this silent image,
she who unfailingly mirrors all that I do
while giving no intimation
of whom she might be inside,
behind the curtain of darkness
which is her exterior

I began to practice
being visual,
studying from the corner of my eye
her movement with each step
I observed her pauses to savor the wind
or to lift her face to the warmth of the sunlight
I watched her reach out
to caress leaves as she passed
and saw her fingers linger among blades of grass
I noted the flutter of garments
and the tendrils of hair,
and always I compared
the way it looked
with the way it felt

Thus was born the beginning
of revision

And re-vision has become defined as
looking at thoughts, emotions,
situations and patterns
in order to discern
which one desires to keep
for one's own
and which to dispose of
as weighty and unnecessary,
to rewrite or redefine
Self
by seeking out and acknowledging
the best of whom we are
and shedding whom we don't care to be
Re-vision
is the coloring-in of the shadow
in any and all colors
of whom we wish to become

Shelley L Flynn
7/02
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