I Saw Your Soul

Just when you smiled I found your soul had seeped into your eyes.

It had welled up and lingered there at its windows to hold briefly my startled gaze

Before it quickly retreated to regain its comfortable home deep within.

You said nothing and pretended to have a brief lapse of consciousness to cover your secret,

But I knew I had just seen your innermost self stripped of all pretense,

And you wondered how it had become so animate at that precise time.

Your soul had claimed its free will and broken the surface on its own accord.

You didn't ask it to, or will it to, or control it by any means.

Something unknown to you had beckoned it to rush safely past your reasoning ways.

Now, frightened by the lack of complete control, you wonder might it happen again,

Just unexpectedly unbind its shackles and reveal itself even more in greater detail.

You search frantically for a logical cause of its brief revelation only to find confusion.

Maybe your smile, willing and true, conspired in the escape.

Maybe your brain, tired and overworked, took a well-deserved rest.

Maybe your heart, broken and bleeding, cried for a change.

I think your soul had been nurtured by years of repression and neglect.

And, finally it grew wings of its own to navigate anew

A world of fresh experience and passion.

May this maiden flight serve its steady, determined return

As it gains the greater graces of comfort and will

To see for itself what exists for it alone.

Just when you smiled, I found your soul had seeped into your eyes.

Beautiful and free, it stood there fearlessly alone and gazed upon me.

And I saw a true love within your eyes I had never seen before.