That Shadow, My Likeness

Often I get in the way of light and there comes this shape that looks similar to me but is not me. I can not catch up to it and sometimes it wants to out do me by growing taller and thinner then me but I take solace in the fact that the time will come again when she will be shorter and squater then me and even disappear. I always remain until I return the dust from hence I came
"THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering;
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
—But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me."
Walt Whitman