“I have known Shadow” - Rudyard Kipling

Reading here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmbq24FVKNg

I have known Shadow
I have known Sun
And now I know
These two are one.

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The synergy between dark and bright is a common subject in poetry. Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice holds that separately, either fire or ice could destroy the world just fine. What I like about Kipling’s take is the simplicity with which shadow and sun are paired. The switch from past tense to present lets darkness be one moment, light the next, and wisdom the last: that without dark there is no light, and without light there is no dark. It’a a simple reminder to the simple truth that there will be an end to bad times, which will usher in good times; and an end to good times—and, again, bad times.