! ! Soul Song: Is This Farewell, Or Simply Au Revoir? Poem by Michael Shepherd

'Soul' – you’ve stood your ground now
for many thousand years; even when
they said God’s dead – and lightning did not strike..

you’ve held our hopes of heaven; even when
we ceased to know just where they were
no longer sky and blue and white and grey,
in thunder and in innocence;

and kept our thoughts of death and life,
filed ‘To Whom It May Concern’;

you have two lodgings still: within
church doors; at graveside; and at prayer;

more of a signpost: ‘Keep to
the public path’, than certain destination;

and still living in that music’s ecstasy
that stirs the feet and lets the heart burst forth…

but now? as God and heaven hide their face
because we cease to look their way,

have you drawn up that lovely silken veil
across your face; that Indian face
that knows its ‘soul’ as servant of the Self;
has known it now for full ten thousand years?

or do you lurk now in laboratories
of cranial research, brain-scan; and
consulting rooms of cognitive research;

to walk in, smile and laugh and say
oh did you miss me? …

or do you whisper in the present ear
of writers on The Power of Now?

Or one day soon, will you reveal
you were, before the Holy Spirit was?

Tomorrow, Soul, how shall I say your name
in silent prayer? in mind beyond all words?

Love needs no name in presence evermore; so,
'Soul' – is this farewell? or simply, au revoir?

*

[out of a conversation with a Doctor of Theology]