Self and Soul

When you reach the cliffs
Defended by Manlius
Enter the sea.

Who finds
Tranquillity
Where he was born?

     *

The star he wished on.
The sea where he fished.

Night he invaded.
The guards who slept.

     *

Follow the river past
Stony plains
Until you reach
The fount: gorse, clear water

Spilling from beneath granite shelves.
No pinnacle
But the view immense.

A breeze from nowhere
Ruffling the leaves.

     *

The sparrows he fashioned.
The friends he lost.

     *

This is the place where
Jesus was hidden from Herod's fury.
Believers drink greedily

But for the rest of us
A drop on the tongue is
Hard punishment.

     *

Who stilled the wind.
Who sighted the blind.

Stupefied shepherds.
Conqueror of death.

     *

You'll carry not
My portrait, like a lover,
But this account of what you'll see
By someone who's never

Seen it, never will.
I'll be standing on the right

As you're leaving,
The left
If you return.

James Longenbach
New England Review
Volume 27, Number 2 / 2006

Copyright © 2006 by Middlebury College Publications.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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