SHADOWS

Once I pretended to be tall.

Soon, my family caught up.

Shorties all, save my grandfather.

The towering man who lived in absentia.

We said hello – year after year.

He spoke to us through the frame he had been given in his home;

a home sold to shelter his brood.

He came to life annually on a leaf laden with his passions and sins.

Shadows.

They make us long, dwarf our souls.