Have You Seen My Soul? Poem by Mark Sauer

To have a child is to mislay your heart, never again
Safely locked away inside your chest (like the smug ogre
In the fable) and hidden, lest some cunning hooligan
Steal the key. Now is your soul a fugitive wanderer
Beyond the horizon, and the world a vast threatening,
Any bit of which might any time crush absently your
Vagrant essence. It is unforeseen and disconcerting
To be shackled like a slave to the whole world where before
You were the master and separate. But when the Mongol
Heart returns at length (the chain binds both ways) crossing the rift,
It returns a caravan, bringing the Earth as a gift.
Truth to tell, when you hid in a cave your festering soul
What good was it to you? Only when apart was it whole.