I Am Not I

Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is. ~Voltaire

Life, for me, is remembering that I am a spiritual being inside my physical body. My soul, though invisible and untouchable, is the most solid thing I have to hang on to in this harsh world. It is eternally present...it can't be seen, but it is felt deep down at the molecular level. Its quiet voice always tells me the honest truth, even when I don't want to hear it. It never leaves me, even as life, at times, knocks me to my knees. In the darkest hours, in the most joyful moments, in every moment, it is with me, giving me strength to carry on. It is I. And it's through my soul's eyes that I write my poems - she notices those "simple things" and I capture them with my camera, happy for her company, while she patiently wanders and waits for my words to come.

This is a poem I've been working on for several weeks...I'm linking up today with Kim's Texture Tuesday, and she asks us to talk about what life is to us. For my image, taken in Sperryville, Va last week, I used Kim's "peony" texture at Multiply/20%. Click on the button below to visit her blog and participate.

EDIT: I'm also linking up with Poets United for their weekly Poetry Pantry prompt - click HERE to see more poems and/or share your own!

OCTOBER

Twilight's curtains
draw closed, revealing
their starry fabric.
A hint of heaven hides
on their reverse side
as my gypsy soul wanders,
barefoot and searching,
walking lightly,
feeling deeply,
sifting the moonlight
with her yearning sieve,
gathering up
its gold stars
to jingle as charms
on her bracelet.

She thinks about
the luminance of love,
the opacity of loss,
the nectar of flowers,
the hinges on doors
never opened, and
her soft heart tries
again and again to
penetrate the universe.
My unwritten poems are
inside her, soul-tended
and spinning, as she
notices simple things: the
rusting leaves, the purpling
skies, the rotting and
bruising of October.

© Sherri Brannon 2013

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And whom at other times I forget;
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk where I am not,
The one who will remain standing when I die. ~Juan Ramón Jiménez