The Soul

Does it exist in the deepest breast? Does it call and feed, both early in the morning when crepuscular dawn lifts her rosy mantle over the veiled and cloudy mountains, under the roaring and raging seas; and at night when the stars, shining in their brilliance, speak memory to the darkened skies?

A slight flame flickers -- or is it a roaring fire? This fire, descended from the sparks above, and yet infernally weaker, suffering, by degrees, its fall, rolls about a vast field of tumble-weeds, sparks forests growing thick with vines, and destroys the fields of flowers where the bees buzz in the heat of summer, swarming now around white lilies, now gathering pollen to make sweet honey, the dripping poetry of men's lips; the roses burn, red and blue with lilacs, green with greenest grass. Stare into these flames, stranger. What do you see? The reflection of your soul, your eyes?

Your eyes are glassy blue; your eyes are deepest black; your eyes are autumn brown. Stranger, who are you, gazing at the destiny of ages? Do you see the tall towers fall and crumble? Do you see the mist settle about the ramparts like ghosts? Do you see once proud man, clutching in skeletal hands (his breast-plate worn upon his chest) his rusted spear? Surely this was a time for stabbing, long ago; surely blood accrued and stained the dirt, stained the grass, stained the blue-decked fields; where once all was grassy space and grains waist-high, now is scuffle and muck and blood, and now is deserted and bones.

A finger, broken off, the slight bone of a thumb. What harp did you hold, what chord did you pluck? Did you sing songs, someday by the tumbling fall, when the ivy cloaked the cave especially thick, or the vine, growing green with new grapes? Did you sing love barely fresh, did you sing wine in a time of harvest? Did you watch strong men stamping across the fields in thick, broad steps, reaping and sowing grains, all kinds, the thick seeds and the small, in autumn and spring? In spring when the snows first melt and trickle in drops, through summer when they fall in rushes and even to winter when they still and clot, hanging a promise on the tapestried ridge?