Who is this man or beast who shadows me—
or not a beast but some sheer mystery
whose presence comes both faintly and in
power—
When I must turn and gaze into the dark
and quickly turn away, forgetting what I’ve
seen—
not seen at all but dimly darkly sensed.
And do I dare to turn toward your face?
That’s not a face and nothing one can
know
or feel, and yet that shadows me today
and yesterday and every day that comes
unwelcome guest appearing from nowhere—
decaying leaves ooze mud beneath my
feet.
At once you take a faceless skull that
mocks—
a blackened mask before a lightless
blank
that follows after after and before
and comes yet closer ever closer than
before
enclosing me in your blank nothingness
and making me as lifeless as your formless face.
“You are not facing me your mind is
wandering
some sad and sorrowful and fearful
sickenings
not standing still to see what still stands
still.”
“Who are you then, or what, that speaks to
me?”
“Your shadow and your life and your impending
doom,
and all you ever were and ever will
become.”
I see my lifeless form, a body lying
still,
and feel no breath no beats but
nothingness
for I am gone not I— no I that sees
just you that gazes down on
lifelessness;
for you have done your work, sheer
emptying
Dissolving me into yourself, o death.
—William Paul McKane
