Love Poem: I Have Been Sifting Through a Shadow
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Written by: Collin Lam

I Have Been Sifting Through a Shadow

I have been sifting through a Shadow,
And only found it a shadow indeed--
The black tresses to outline its features,
Like waking at new morning's chime.
 
I greeted it as though my dark and its
Would be a shade indistinct,
And find in each a same-song toil
That needed no words for which to speak.
 
It cast upon my unaccustomed eyes,
And in earnest I rubbed to be sure
The light was not playing tricks on me,
But no light I saw but below my door.
 
The Shadow bemused itself with shadows,
As a bad mother to her youth,
And so much I thought it tender true.
True! The very word is like a mist
 
That hungrily clings to solid ground,
Though it is dark and none can I see.
The light beneath my door is waning,
So I must love the Shadow all the more,
 
But the night is born to bewitch the sense;
Love is an hour that has a minute's way
Where awake or dreaming, I cannot know,
If Shadows have form in the light of day.