Oh my soul, my soul  
The fragments of my life  
Float by like little slips of paper  
Each with a word from a distant poem.  

Like summer gnats  
They light on the things around me,  
Like dust specks, pass away.  

The rampant garden grows and gives,  
The flowers bloom,  
The water runs over my hands  
And disappears.  

I move among the objects in my room  
And watch the sky.  
I hear my days go by  
Like bears, lumbering in the distance  
Toward my soul

 
©1972 William H. Southwell
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