Portrait, in Which the Soul Asks Who is Responsible

As for the life you still love— are its 
interruptions and derailments caused 

by invisible powers? You don't have 
an answer either. Nor do you know 

if somehow you've incited their anger, made 
them feel they've had to put you in your place. 

Did you desire more than you should? Was it 
wrong to return, unopened, envelopes 

carrying endless messages of no, not you; 
surrender; or try again— and instead 

quicken to possibility? As for the depths 
that beckon with nets of shapeshifting 

light on their surface;  as for what scores
each leaf with beaten gold before night's

expected overtaking—Sometimes you sit 
on the stone steps and feel the weight 

and unrelenting length of solitude,
the depth of the simple wish to receive

instead of give. But most of the time you return 
the way you came, back to where the soul 

dreams of interludes of quiet, even as the body 
picks up and sorts whatever the day scattered. 

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