Where Does the Spirit Dwell

 

Spirit Questions (a Rubaiyat)
Where dwells the spirit before life begins
Waiting to entwine with genes at man’s whim
Does it float in space riding red star dust
Or in ocean waves where the teeming swim

Where dwells the spirit when I took my first
Breath of life merged with heart and lungs first thirst
Spirit seems at home in this flesh and bone
Fragile body // heart pumping till it bursts

Where does my spirit dwell when life is done
As eyes close in death and the race is run
Breath leaves the body and the spirit’s rises
Rejoining spirit with Spirit // lives on

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

I posted this poem a year ago, but thought it would be a good one for Holy Week.

Today Frank at d’Verse asked us to write a rubia or a rubaiyat.
“A rubai or stanza in a rubaiyat is four lines long and rhymes AABA in iambic pentameter meter. That is how Edward Fitzgerald translated Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. Khayyam was an 11th century Persian. Fitzgerald’s translation appeared in 1859.”
This is my first attempt at this so I hope I come close to what is expected.