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Now reading
Theories of the Soul
Kant says, transcendental
idealism. In Aquinas,
we exist apart from bodies
but only on Thursdays
when his famous ox
flies by the window
wiser at Cologne
where Albertus Magnus,
his real name, appoints
Aquinas to magister studentium,
master of students. Aquinas
is petrified but says yes.
He feels his soul
sailing out of his head
floating near the roof
where a blue ox wings by.
On Wednesday, two bodies
are one soul
waking at sunrise
thanks to the pineal gland
of Descartes, who thinks
this node in the brain
is a tiny sugar cone
or salted peanut,
the seat of the soul
while Aristotle points
to the chopping
ax as a teleology
as if the ax were a living,
breathing person
which it isn’t.
Heraclitus, air and fire
while Aquinas objects, no
not an ax but ox.
If you’re a bird or soul
I am only one mile
from the sea. If you
are a soul in two bodies
life is more complex
and we must labor
twice the field of sorrow
after sleep, bath, and a glass
as Aquinas whispers, the things
we love tell us who we are.