On the Existence of the Soul

How confident I am it is there. Don’t I bring it,

As if it were enclosed in a fine leather case,

To particular places solely for its own sake?

Haven’t I set it down before the variegated canyon

And the undeviating bald salt dome?

Don’t I feed it on ivory calcium and ruffled

Shell bellies, shore boulders, on the sight

Of the petrel motionless over the sea, its splayed

Feet hanging? Don’t I make sure it apprehends

The invisibly fine spray more than once?

I have seen that it takes in every detail

I can manage concerning the garden wall and its borders.

I have listed for it the comings and goings

Of one hundred species of insects explicitly described.

I have named the chartreuse stripe

And the fimbriated antenna, the bulbed thorax

And the multiple eye. I have sketched

The brilliant wings of the trumpet vine and invented

New vocabularies describing the interchanges between rocks

And their crevices, between the holly lip

And its concept of itself.

And if not for its sake, why would I go

Out into the night alone and stare deliberately

Straight up into 15 billion years ago and more?

I have cherished it. I have named it.

By my own solicitations

I have proof of its presence.

Source: Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems (Milkweed Editions, 1994)