Another poem, written today …

Soul

          wind, rock, shoreline, bay, mountain, island,
soul
          breath, horizon, ocean, headland, sun, tide,
soul
          Cadillac, Newbury Neck, Long Island, Naskeag, Isle au Haut, Megunticook,
soul

          what if soul is not contained within me
but me within soul?
          what if soul does not belong to me, “my soul”
but I belong to soul?

          what if I am what I appear to be
animated body: breathing, moving, lifting, eating, thinking, feeling, writing,
swimming, hoping, crying, laughing, reaching, growing, aging, dying, being?
          what if me is not some hidden, ethereal, immaterial , immortal soul
but what you see is what you get is me
          and soul, far from hidden, ethereal, immaterial, immortal
is like me, made of the same substance, made like me or me like soul?
          what if we are made not merely of the soil of the earth
but of the soul of the earth?

          when I look out from the outcropped granite on the southern flank of Blue Hill
          I do not merely see a view that pleases me
I see me,
          the me that is part of something much larger than me
soul
          and I am not merely in a place, but of a place
of this place

          wind, rock, shoreline, bay, mountain, island,
soul
          breath, horizon, ocean, headland, sun, tide,
soul
          Cadillac, Newbury Neck, Long Island, Naskeag, Isle au Haut, Megunticook,
soul
          in this moment, in this place, woods, pond, boulder, tree, you, me,
soul
          alike made of the soul of the earth
          in the image of God