Locating the Soul

- glosa  on Jan Zwicky's poem "If there were two rivers"

If there were two rivers.

If their water were clear gold.

If it were a flood, a homecoming, and where they joined,

a standing wave, its crest of white.

“If There Were Two Rivers,” Jan Zwicky

What if the soul could be found

if it were a place, a destination

or a mark on a map to say

this is where we are from

this is where we began, before bones

were covered in skin, before altars

were built on balanced stones

words like wings imagining form that conjures

a rod, line and hook used by fishers.

If there were two rivers.

What if the soul could swim

like a catfish suspecting the bronze hook

purposely baited with its own end game

just as a fable knows the ending before

it shapes a beginning like a rod and line

something hard, smooth and shiny to hold

the old stomach’s memory of hunger

perceived, understood and told

floating in currents fast and cold.

If their water were clear gold.

What if the soul were a glacier melting

into the unseen river. Not the one used

to baptize the innocent, to carry our warriors

and waste to the sea, where fish are farmed

and trawlers give up their catch for tankers

a teeming current, water purloined

— but the other one flowing through veins

beneath the bank recounted and coined

as something owned. And what if it were a flood,

a homecoming, and where they joined,

outlying peaks merged beneath a pink sky

the sun rolls down like water, behind

those mountains, in protest against tectonic plates

that fought and caused the earth to quake

the dusk air curls and softens hard edges

fading, departing, almost dissolving but not quite.

Then a fleeting tease asking why you came

like an urge that lies silent, timeless, polite

and in that distant diminishing sunlight

a standing wave, its crest of white.