do you know

that shadows lurk

in the light?

can you feel your way

through the shadows

to the light?

When I was very, very young, I had a children’s book about a farm and a character called Uncle Bunny Bunny.  I don’t remember the title or the story.  But I remember the illustration on one page.  It was looking up into the fall colors of a tree and the artist had captured beautifully, to my child’s imagination, the specific way that the light comes through the layers of leaves, shadowing and lighting each in its own unique way.  Time and again I would go to that page and look at the tree, savoring the light and the shadow.  It felt deeply familiar, physical, delicious.

Today I saw these iris as I was having breakfast and saw the way the shadow and light were coming through the fresh leaves.  It is that way for me today – feeling my way through the shadows into the light.