SHADOW OF A SHADOW

Fluorescent flower painted of a shadow.
Flower dying slowly, uprooted from the ground,
Once living, growing, blooming, dropping seeds, and replanting. Uprooted it lives only to die without rebirth,
The flower dies and becomes only a shadow of the shadow on the wall.

This prose describes something that I actually experienced. As a teenager my mother allowed me to paint on the basement walls where my bedroom was located. Her reasoning was that my father would get tired of the things that I painted on the walls and then he'd be motivated to fix up the basement. That backfired when I painted a larger than life arm of Jesus nailed to the cross with the "Judge not..." verses calligraphied beneath. Anyway, I digress; one day I was given a carnation which I placed in a vase and set on the table by my bed. The flower cast a shadow on the wall and with fluorescent paints in hand and nothing else to do I painted the shadow of the carnation on the wall in bright vibrant colors. Days later I had forgotten all about the flower and the painting till I turned on my black light, turned off the overhead and there on the wall by my bed the shadow of the flower burst to life as the real flower drooped dark and dead, now nothing more than a shadow of the painting. It was quite amazing, really.