Information’s Dimmer Guests

It’s a bit like shadow puppetry
With nothing but the fingers and hands,
Or like playing with shadows at all,

The way you and your daughter used to
Amuse yourselves, boring desert days,
By posing around the porch to see

Who could create the greatest grotesques.
All those silhouettes only outlined
Patches of modestly decreased light—

They would have looked eerier, glowing,
If you could have thrown those tints at night.
You didn’t really make them. Sun did.

But you were the ones blocking the sun
To invent the shapes. You were the ones.