On the Existence of the Soul

How confident I am it is there. Don’t I bring it, As if it were enclosed in a fine leather case, To particular places solely for its own sake? Haven’t I set it down before the variegated canyon And the undeviating bald salt dome? Don’t I feed it on ivory calcium and ruffled Shell bellies, shore boulders, on the sight Of the petrel motionless over the sea, its splayed Feet hanging? Don’t I make sure it apprehends The invisibly fine spray more than once? I have seen that it takes in every detail I can manage concerning the garden wall and its borders. I have listed for it the comings and goings Of one hundred species of insects explicitly described. I have named the chartreuse stripe And the fimbriated antenna, the bulbed thorax And the multiple eye. I have sketched The brilliant wings of the trumpet vine and invented New vocabularies describing the interchanges between rocks And their crevices, between the holly lip And its concept of itself. And if not for its sake, why would I go Out into the night alone and stare deliberately Straight up into 15 billion years ago and more? I have cherished it. I have named it. By my own solicitations I have proof of its presence.