Soliloquy of the Soul to the Self – a poem by Catherine Gonick

Soliloquy of the Soul to the Self


already a couple of years down the road
	I first notice 
myself through your knowing

realize
I have been looked and listened for
all this time by my companion

I who look and speak
       only through
your mouth and eyes 

and at that moment it is difficult to 
imagine     yet I do

the distance we might walk 
together 

through your growing up
   aging and then dying
your continuing

all the while to want to know 
    when I am holding
your warm hand 

which I can’t feel any more
than myself 

even in the melt of
moments when we two 

twine into one
    inside another

world
and I still
   	wonder

no matter
how deep      our woods
magic    our mountain			

if the day you leave
I will remember

myself before
knowing you

and how I will know
myself after

Catherine Gonick’s poetry has appeared in publications including Soul-Lit, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, New Verse News, Sukoon, and Forge, and in anthologies including in plein air, Grabbed, and Dead of Winter 2021.  She works in a company that combats the effects of global warming.