The Soul

The soul is a
flowering peach tree blooming on a

bright green hill

The scale of a dragon fallen into the
Princess’ goblet turning water into the most

effluvious Paradisiacal wine one sniff of which up our
nostrils turns our flesh to song

A harbor full of sailing vessels each
loaded with inestimable treasure

but in the eyes of a single child
nothing but a cloth doll or a

lump of clay
treasured more than all the rest

and the evaluation is true

We crash against our souls in the most
unmannerly manners

yet its High C transcends all the

cacophony we produce

It’s calmer than smooth ocean under
moonlight in a sweet island cove

has traveled farther than the most
outlandish shaman from the

wildest frontier with his hard-won
healing song bringing the

entire village back to life and seals
back swimming under the ice

Is cooler than breezes over Ganges
burning ghats that take Hindus’

bodies’ essences in fine ash flakes to the
godliest heavens to

dance with other souls forever
in their extravagant eternity

Is hotter than gypsies’ cante hondo on makeshift
wood tables in heart-echoing forests of their only

safe refuge

We can never sing enough to our souls
to encourage their bravado while our

bodies seem to simmer in their
own juices or

disintegrate all around us bit by bit
like forest animals one by one running back

into the coziness of their lairs

leaving us like lone singers on a
single hill at midnight under

an entire sky of silver stars

Our souls in the pockets of our
deepest beings waiting to be

lured into the open to
proves themselves victorious over

all
and over all and anything

that can hit us
however it may hit us

to leave us undauntedly
victorious

after all

6/5/12 (from Down at the Deep End)

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