Old Soul

painting by John Sokol

Old Soul

In a house of bone, on a belly
of shell, you wander, alone,

through tussock sedge and fetid
leaves; over hummocks, and

into swales; through mud
and muck and matted reeds.

With seismic sense, and skeleton
reversed, you trudge through

fields of bluestem, and
wallow through hollows of

bracken, as you head for the sand
pits and the scent of sweetfern,

near thickets of alder and willow.
When you meet your reflection

at the edge of the marsh, you see
a stranger in your own home.

Resigned to your fate, and a legacy
of 200-million years, you search for

an isle of log, or a warm stone,
as you paddle and glide through

aqueous green. Had you been a
Buddhist, at Wat Po -- where turtles

are revered as human souls,
making their way through one

of many lives -- you might have
known the slow road to Nirvana

could ditch you here, where you
drag the bottom of a watery

world, and make do in the mud,
with your mutable soul.

John Sokol

Posted over on his Facebook page.

-- from "In the Summer of Cancer"