Racing across the hilly meadows,
Racing across the dusty plains,
Scorching sun up high above them,
Their bodies drenched with cooling rains.

Not caged in with wooden fences,
Land as far as the eye can see,
Independent of man’s ways,
They are free.

Hoofbeats pounding the Earth,
Thundering through the sky,
Not held back by man’s contraptions,
This is where they live and die.

In her rocking chair she sits,
While she hums to herself and knits.
She’s knitting a shawl to fend off the cold,
For now she’s wrinkled, gray-haired and old.

She used to run and have lots of fun,
But that was way back when she was young.
Now her arthritis is really bad,
And she’s feeling very lonely and sad.

Now she lives in a nursing home,
Most of the time, she’s all alone.
Her children don’t come to visit much,
‘Cause they’re always so busy with work and such.

She stares out the window and she sighs,
She watches the road with watery eyes.
And wonders if they’ll come today,
But they don’t; she knew they wouldn’t anyway.

She lays her knitting on her lap,
Then closes her eyes and has a nap.
Down her cheek, there rolls a tear,
As she dreams of yesteryear.

I am the shadow,
I exist in a world of light,
Blending into the darkness of night.

My face you cannot see,
My expressions, sometimes misleading.

If you hear a whisper in the wind,
It may be me.

I am the shadow,
I exist in a world of sounds, good and bad.
Of laughter,
Crying,
Shouting,
Singing.

You think that I feel nothing,
No love,
No hate,
No anger,
No fear,
No pain.
But you are wrong.

You think that I do not cry,
But I weep silently.
You cannot see the tears that slide down my cheeks,
But they are there.

I am the shadow, you cannot touch,
Always within sight but never within reach.

I am the shadow, afraid to trust the light for it distorts me.
Please forgive me if I trick you,
I cannot control it.

I long to live in the light,
To be held and loved,
But I am only a silent shadow,
Watching but unable to take part in it all,
What others do, I can only dream of.

So I lurk in corners,
Ignored,
Misunderstood.
Always waiting for the night to come,
Always dying but never dead.

I am the shadow, I have no friends,
Even in a crowd, I’m all alone.
Existing in somber shades of gray,
A lonely shadow,
I’m doomed to stay.