Stanley H. Barkan
The Bony Casement
after Amichai
If the fish's soul is its empty bones
what then is the soul of man?
Are his bones, too, the containers
of that which is incorporeal?
How can there be substance to airy nothingness,
solidity to an abstraction, an idea of immortality?
Poets say the soul is in the eyes -
look into the eyes of your lover!
There is the flash, the flame, the fire
that engulfs two spirits mythically split.
Hades carries off sweet Persephone,
drags her down to the Underworld.
There in the dark that incorporates
the bright bone and flickering spirit
They reign in the bowels of the black earth,
the true bony casement of the soul of man.
what then is the soul of man?
Are his bones, too, the containers
of that which is incorporeal?
How can there be substance to airy nothingness,
solidity to an abstraction, an idea of immortality?
Poets say the soul is in the eyes -
look into the eyes of your lover!
There is the flash, the flame, the fire
that engulfs two spirits mythically split.
Hades carries off sweet Persephone,
drags her down to the Underworld.
There in the dark that incorporates
the bright bone and flickering spirit
They reign in the bowels of the black earth,
the true bony casement of the soul of man.
Page(s) 42
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