Mind and Soul

I flew away to Wonderland

and reached it for a time

but life's too short and sustenance

called me back with a chime.

I spiraled right back down

a-looking for my mind

then cried softly, for in my trance

I'd left my mind behind.

Sometimes, thoughts are clouds:

thousands of droplets, waiting to coalesce

and drip out softly or in a torrent,

refreshing, suffocating, or simply letting go.

Other times, thoughts are networks:

senses and logic and emotions wrapped up in one,

queryable, quivering, fluid yet concrete,

a spinning kaleidoscope dizzying in its intensity.

Still other times, thoughts are voices:

heard and unheard, spoken and unspoken,

the silent words of a touch,

the colors and sounds within and without.

Most times, thoughts are all of the above;

yet always, they are more:

an interface, a layer in the intangible,

immaterial encoded in material, in lightning and ions,

a gift from God, reaching beyond space and time.

the sunshine of sweet squash

the simplicity of showers

the soft smile of siblings

the susurrus of the soul.

we are all tapes on a machine,

written on and shifted,

memories recorded on ourselves.

each step takes us

closer to where we will be,

farther from where we were,

in time with where we are.

yet we are not just a product

or a sum of the past,

for the implements that write on us

are not confined to molecules in space.

maybe time is an interface

through which we experience life.

maybe matter is a way to tie

our souls together

and let us visibly pulse and write

on one another,

unraveling, intertwining.

for when the transitions stop,

we will be written into

the lives that we touched

in the machine that is life.

and more than that,

we will unspool into

everything that is beyond,

unbound from matter

and unbound from time,

if we so choose to grasp onto

the uncountable Source of all life.