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Edgar Cayce

EDGAR CAYCE
			
		True, true, my hands are soft– not overworked,
		nor lined by heavy labor-- nor calloused  
		-- the soft hands of a gentleman, perhaps!
		But my manners are rough and countryfied, 
		my speech slow and southern– hillbilly twang–
		Kentucky born and bred-- just barely schooled,
		crude-souled, unrefined,  a  bit of a rube
		– more than once I have heard me so described!
		And, of course, I’m not well-read– no classics,
		knowing but little of this great wide world--
		then these trances come--  I must leave myself! 
		Go swim through the thick soup of life itself!
		Here we have the body– for its own use– 
		(supposedly, for that’s the theory)
		– for transport, pleasure, for dream, sentience–
		and Death looms large in  the imagination,
		as it must  in them that guess their own end
		--  a variety of common ailments--
		– disease and injury, cancer, famine,
		not to say blindness-- fear of falling– 
		and, always, small physical pains and aches–
		though not so small as to go unnoticed! 
		Nor should we forget to mention accident
		– who habitates far from cause and effect–	
		propinquity’s most unlovely stepchild!
		But beyond all that– who is this person here?
		Who is  this spirit dressed in mortal clothes?
		Where do we find the psyche, the engine,
		the driver makes this body move about 
		in some realm of coexistence with God?
		I've visited in both lung and liver, 
		swam the blood through all the veins– toe to head–  
		traveled through  intestine and out again,	
		been one with nerve and bone and cartelidge–
		I’ve mapped the heart, viewed  ventricles, aorta,
		looked out through  pupil of another’s eye
		– experienced both sets of genitals-- 
		even seen the brain while it was at work--	
		yet still– I can tell you nothing-- nothing!	
		My Presbyterian soul so hungers for  a sign
		– the minutest spark of some  divine light–
		and I must confess– I have not found it! 
		Only once, whilst dreaming in the pineal,
		I glimpsed a long parade of empty carts
		that traveled quickly down all the bright years
		to be filled by an unknown unseen hand–

Copyright © Jack Peachum | Year Posted 2021

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