Like nearing the last pages of a book I don’t want to end, long shadows fill me with a sinking melancholy. It isn’t darkness I fear; it is the end. As something to be faced and met with openness, it requires a vulnerability from which I wish to flee.

Sunlight fades below the standing trees. I begin to mourn the loss of now.

High above my shoulders, singing its glory overhead like a crown of shining jewels, brimming with vitality in its prime. That now. The best of now.

And even though I understand the fall of day drops below my feet into the promise of tomorrow, I mourn. Long shadows fade to no shadows.