I am a sundial
In a sunken garden.

On the days when you show your face
I bask, all those long warm hours.

You only see me when I glow,
borrowing your radiance –

but behind me, where you cannot see,
circles a cold shadow blade.

It gets longer the closer you are to leaving

and in it
are all the iron frost memories
of the days when you do not come.

© Melinda Smith

                            from Mapless in Underland (Ginninderra Press, 2004)

Photograph © oraclefox.com