Soul Work

I

In the old neighborhood,
my home town, I'm driving
and thinking of houses
I painted years ago.
Paint surely peeled and scraped
or at least hidden--
how many layers over the years?
How many brushes and hands?
Your work will be undone.

Not the soul, no--
it doesn't go that way.
Layer over layer, clarifying
like lenses sharpening vision.

Down, through heart-depths,
something opens up,
letting through the light.

If I peer back through them
when the light is just so,
what will leap into focus?

Painting houses, renewal--
a ritual practice, an ablution
or communion, a re-creation
but not the act,
which is pure looking,
when the time is right.


II.

Like a delicate
songbird, soul vision in my
nervous, steady hand.