some days i'm off. i'm here but i feel distant. somewhere else but here trying to locate.
i see myself writing this and i watch myself walking from a distance as if i were someone else, as if i might figure out this figure walking from a distance. but i'm in here, looking out.

and i take pictures of my shadow. trying to locate inner and outer by shadow. to connect by a thread. weak thread of vision. without inspiration. when i tried to load this picture of my shadow with redbud in the swamp it took 3 times and the third i had to alter. it wasn't ready yet. sometimes when i picture my shadow i feel like i'm trying to get ready and i feel unprepared yet i don't know what for, as i have for decades in dreams, dreams that try to prepare me yet cannot tell me what for or tell me that i cannot remember. re.member. when i get back in my shape. the shape my shadow makes. a reminder that i'm a dreamer. that i was born here in a land of broken dreams. a dreamer no less.

and i know it's banal and i know it's an absence i feel, know it like my shadow. know nothing. still, yet moving, it moves like me, the essence of the ordinary mystery. the who of who am i. i cast a shadow therefore. the shadow is a presence of my absence. my empty thought seen.

i'll leave this soon, i have to walk the dog. though i know despite myself, despite looking for something else, i'll always return to my shadow. so many days it does not appear. when there's no sun there's no shadow, yet there is sun and there is shadow.

 i also see the translucent skins of plants that have died, and baby plants beneath.

i look at small areas i would miss.