All the Bodies of the Soul

“And listen,” the officer said, “on any morning look down / Into the valley. Watch the shadows, the clouds dispersing”

It can be startling to see

The shadows for the first time,

Unable to connect them

To some solid obstacle

Blocking light and throwing them.

Of course, people don’t notice

Discrepancies easily.

We know objects throw shadows,

And when shadows startle us,

It’s because we realize

Something must be casting them,

Something that we hadn’t seen.

It’s not the shadows themselves,

As things in themselves, we fear;

It’s whatever’s just off-screen.

So, mostly, the embodied

Shadows who are their own things

Glide about through days and nights,

And no one screams. These shadows

Have come down from the Ghost Road

Of your distant ancestors,

Ancestors long forgotten,

Every last one of them but

For their ghosts, their myths, their terms

For our arc of galaxy—

River, road, backbone, way—and

For these shadows, on their own.

I can spend an afternoon,

Watching them wander around.

I’ve grown used to the idea

No local interference

Is creating them. Nothing

Comes between me and the lights

On the ceiling, whatever

Version of ceiling I’ve got,

Sun, office, hospital bed.