shadowed

no standards set out
in the yard the runner
follows his shadow
to the valley's cleft
macadam man seen ever
taller on the fallen
leaves that sound is his
heart beating back
the silence

i rise i rise
the hours accumulate
sweat is my skin
oxygen in short supply
i rise on the hill
the bobbing figure
before me when
will he disappear?

A meditation on aging and my health, the shadow is that time the spirit lives, perhaps just beyond the end of the run. Who truly knows?