The Uncarved Blog

Concerning the Atoms of the Soul

by John Glenday

Someone explained once how the pieces of what we are
fall downwards at the same rate
as the Universe.
The atoms of us, falling towards the centre

of whatever everything is. And we don’t see it.
We only sense their slight drag in the lifting hand.
That’s what weight is, that communal process of falling.
Furthermore, these atoms carry hooks, like burrs,

hooks catching like hooks, like clinging to like,
that’s what keeps us from becoming something else,
and why in early love, we sometimes
feel the tug of the heart snagging on another’s heart.

Only the atoms of the soul are perfect spheres
with no means of holding on to the world
or perhaps no need for holding on,
and so they fall through our lives catching

against nothing, like perfect rain,
and in the end, he wrote, mix in that common well of light
at the centre of whatever the suspected
centre is, or might have been.

(Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds,
ed. by Neil Astley and Pamela Robertson-Pearce)

Related poems worth seeing: Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, Buddha in Glory, reminds us of our eternal nature within; and Fishing For Fallen Light: A Tanka inspired by David Lynch and Pablo Neruda. Another poem recently added from Soul Food is Thomas Merton’s Song for Nobody. And later Two profound poems by Stephen Levine: in the realm of the passing away & millennium blessing.

Tags: Concerning the Atoms of the Soul, John Glenday, Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds, spiritual poetry

This entry was posted on March 3, 2018 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Other poems, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.