I Have Felt a Presence – a poem by Sharon Scholl

I Have Felt a Presence*

Not up there, out there, somewhere
separate from the reality around us.

Nothing foreign like some great power
leaning over the universe

tweaking the force of fate, casually
dispensing life and death.

Not the Other, a stranger to our nature
but something that shares our Being.

I feel that great Familiar, the life
force itself that wears us as its flesh,

holds us nearer than breath, 
as vital as blood and bones.  

     *from Wordsworth’s 'Lines Written 
        above Tintern Abbey'
 

Sharon Scholl is a retired college professor (humanities) who convenes a poetry critique group and maintains a website of original music and poetry (www.freeprintmusic.com). She is a church musician still active at 90 as member of a piano duo. Her poetry chapbooks (Seasons, Remains, Timescape) are available from Amazon Books. Individual poems are current in Gyroscope Review and Rockvale Review.