Shadow Soul - Day 19 Poem

Superstitious

There's a story she won't tell,

fears it's undoing if she does.

So she holds it close, tucked

away in a pocket, takes it out

every now and then to look on

in private. She knows this is silly,

foolish even, this superstition

of tempting fate, whose wagging,

naysaying fingers might snatch

this from her. Her heart pounds,

her mouth goes dry, tears form

at the corners of her eyes, at just

the thought of losing her story,

the one not yet written.

The first couple of lines of this poem just popped into my head as I was resetting our high/low thermometer this afternoon (when the sun shines on it the temp is registered too high so once it's in shadow we dial it down). I have no clue where it came from (well, I do, but I don't know why it popped into my head when it did). I was on my way out to run errands, so I jotted the line in my little notebook that I keep with me all the time. Later, home, I sat down to write and this is what came out. The picture was chosen because while looking up superstitions (in an effort to find one that I might have a picture to illustrate with), I read that the ancients believed your shadow was your soul, or some such. And voila! I had a picture of a shadow.