! ! The Good Poem by Michael Shepherd

Even before she held you tight to her
and murmured softly, isn’t that just good? —

before you learned to hear, and speak, and spell
and comprehend the concept of the Good –

your soul already hungered for the Good it loves,
never to be quenched in its desire;

as your beloved cat, who in the day
manipulates affection, but at night

becomes a ruthless predator to feed its catness;
so your clever, cunning, hungry, godly soul;

even when your adolescent heart falls flat
at beauty’s vision in a human form

soul whispers (unattended to) : now here’s the truth:
that even beauty’s borrowed and must be refreshed..

so soul may take a lifetime, till the mind
whose aid it seeks to find itself the Good

arrives; and sighs a lifetime’s sigh; and rests;
and soul, which knows no failure, place, or time,
shines out to prove it never went away;
nor shall, nor can; her elsewhere light, our day.

*

[From Plotinus, Ennead VI 7,31,17-31]