Today's Poetry Daily selection

TO THE SOUL


Is anyone there
if so
are you real
either way are you
one or several
if the latter
are you all at once
or do you
take turns not answering

is your answer
the question itself
surviving the asking
without end
whose question is it
how does it begin
where does it come from
how did it ever
find out about you
over the sound
of itself
with nothing but its own
ignorance to go by


W. S. Merwin
Migration: New and Selected Poems
Copper Canyon Press

Copyright (c) 2005 by W. S. Merwin.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.