Hard task…to analyse the mind
             —William Wordsworth

                                                                           which,
on days like this—first sunlight, then rain, then sun again—
is what the soul
                             (the early draft’s choice word) seems closest to.

Impenitent wanderer, lonely itinerant gone from the creature
so long you start
                              to wonder—first in a whisper, then louder,
then so loud it becomes law and, being law, is truth—if it was
ever there at all…

*

And you have to admit,
                                        it seems far-fetched: not of the body
but within it; motivating it somehow; so inexplicable that, impossibly,
God seems the rational answer—
                                                        first rain, then; now, sunlight; and now
rain again, the reappearance of which is neither sign nor divine
longsuffering.
                        Just a rhythm, that’s all; a tuneless whistling.
It’s easy: just open your mouth, curve your tongue; and breathe.