In the book of shadows
the first page is dark
and the second darker still,
but on the next page,
and the next, there is a flickering
as if the shadows are dancing
with themselves, as if they are dancing
with the leaves they mimic.
Before Narcissus found the pool
it was his shadow he loved,
the way we grow to love our deaths
when we meet them
in dreams. For as we turn
the pages of the book
each page grows heavier
under our numbed fingers, and only
the shadows themselves
are weightless,
only the shadows welcome us
beneath their cool canopy.
Linda Pastan,
Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems
1968-1998