Blind Willie Johnson wanted someone to tell him, "Just what is the soul of a man?"
How did he know there was a message, even when we didn't understand
The meaning? I sat by the side of the highway near the ruins. Nothing doing.
I walked up a bit of the Coal Pits Wash. Sweet in-between hour, not a soul.
Soulless. I visited Mama Earth Park and perched beneath old cottonwoods
Shedding this year's last left leaves into the year-round creek. Peaceful.
Again, not a soul. Very nice. And then I remembered me. Someone else
Arriving to find me already seated, reading, writing, and breathing
Could be forgiven for also finding the moment in the low-edged daylight
Soulful, or at least occupied. Preoccupied. But that's not the way it was
And not the way it will be, once my long-gone actual soul comes back for me.
At either end, when I could not have had and shan't have opportunity to be,
My soul is possession of nothing itself and there has been, will have, never be.
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