Colette Jonopulos
  • Home
  • About
  • Poetry
  • Contact
  • Blog

​

The Body

9/7/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!


I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman



St. Augustine is often blamed for creating the concept of a body/mind-soul split, and much of Western thinking is based on this idea. The Psalmist's, For I am fearfully and wonderfully made, seems to have given way to I am fearfully made. 

Walt Whitman helped in sewing the soul back into the weft of the body with his words, yet we continue to struggle with the supposed separation. 

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?


If we are lucky, our bodies demand we get out of our heads and heed the ache and passion of living. It may be an illness that takes us from our head space and into our fragile body. Or an accident. Maybe falling in love is the key, the tipping point between intellectualism's dry company and the body's wonderful letting go.

Poets are advised to appeal to the senses. Work with ideas if you must, ideals and political leanings, but nothing will capture the reader like a well-placed image or scent, the remembrance of a taste brought forward. Cut through the radish skin, red reveals white, slight moisture on your fingers, bitterness on your tongue. 

Today I am dwelling in scent/ sight/ sound/ taste/ touch.

Today I am dwelling in the body electric.




0 Comments

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2021
    November 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    August 2017
    February 2017
    April 2016
    September 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Author

    My writing often deals with the environment, my poetry filled with allusions to natural and man-made disasters. I have unlimited hope though; there is just too much wonder in this world to become a defeatist. To quote Margaret J. Wheatley, '"Hopelessness has surprised me with patience."

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photo used under Creative Commons from marcelo noah
  • Home
  • About
  • Poetry
  • Contact
  • Blog