This Soul

by Andrew Colliver


Original Language English

Says Abu Sa'id Ibn Abi'l-Khayr:
     These souls know
     one another by smell,
     like horses.

This is how I listen now:
     leaning in to hear a
     resonance that swells
     into the soundless.
This is how I look now:
     with eyes wide for a line
     that curves in to touch
     the infinite.
This is how I speak now:
     knowing that every word
     tells of ignorance and is relieved
     only by silence.
This is how I feel:
     by the heft of unnameable
     currents dispersing
     into weightlessness.

And for all the seismic shifts,
     there is no difference
     I can speak of;
For all the geological upheavals,
     the rivers are still slow
     through the low hills.

Nothing but a solitary sky
     and a scent that will not
     leave my nostrils.



- From the unpublished manuscript A Day of Light, by Andrew Colliver

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Recommended Books: Andrew Colliver

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology) This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World



This Soul