Poem: All souls catch the light

All souls catch the light

 

Patrick T. Reardon

 

 

All souls catch the light, catch

the rhythm, catch the virus.

 

The pebble vote of all souls.

 

The time of all souls is now.  On

Broadway late Sunday morning,

all souls sit on the concrete benches

before concrete tables in the chilly

McDonald’s patio, shaded now, a

pounding rain of sun later.

 

The long-hair teen girls, uncertain,

are all souls, the cane-walker, the

woman covered in dirty layers and

scabs where the sidewalks meet, the

besuited angst man, the sad priest, the

running cop, the unseeing one, the

hunched wheelchair pusher and her

care, the two leaning toward each

other, weight, like thick vapors,

floating up to the sky. All souls at

the moment of emptying out.

 

Took attendance of all souls,

rostered the starting lineup.

 

Took off for other precincts.

Took down the tree,

fed the furnace with firewood,

let the baby sleep.

Took my place in line.

 

All souls thunder mornings.

The pubescent clang, all souls.

The ash tree snick, all souls.

All souls and the rip of the sunset.

All souls and the mirror and the plash.

 

I sleep with all souls.

 

On the 22 bus, all souls sing along to

words appearing in the air of an

ancient Persian lullaby.

 

All souls drag themselves up the

basketball court to avoid the defender,

to find an open spot, to launch

a shot of faith.

 

All souls just want to be heard.

 

All souls pose in the dusty windows

of an unoccupied comix store.  The

funeral home awaits. The baby in

the stroller, soberly studying the

gray sky, is the whole world and

all souls.

 

Stuff the homeless grocery cart with all souls.

Fit onto the tip of the spire.

File in the gray cabinet on its way to the dump.

The prayer for a merciful heart.

 

I have no diagnosis for all souls.  It’s

all the word of the bowels. Expose all

souls to the X-ray, the ultrasound, the

MRI and the surgeon’s smile.

 

The blank beige wall, the yellow brick

parapet, all souls unseen on the silver

tar roof, looking to the blue, looking to the

blinding, looking to the ending pain.

 

Esau and Jacob, all souls, Goliath and

David, Ishmael and Isaac, Lot and

Abraham and Lot’s salt wife, laughing

Sarah, Lear and Job, MacBeth and the

witches, Howl and Song of Myself, the

Bride of Frankenstein and the Wife of

Bath, Odysseus and the gluttonous suitors

and the pretty maids all in a row.

 

The giggle of all souls out of

eleven-year-old boys sidewalking,

the enclosed moment. On the lawn, the

collection of paper sorrows.

 

In the Sovereign Tap, all souls look into

the chasm of power. Hop, jump and skip.

On the el, asleep, all souls.

 

Lord, help.  God, bless.  Mary Mother, hear.

All souls pray brick scriptures,

asphalt blues, the sum of all wonder.

 

Granville, all souls, Thorndale,

Armitage, Webster, all souls,

Dickens, Cortez, Leamington,

17^th Street, 29^th Place, 79^th, 87^th,

113rd. The crowds at the Troy

theme park and the battlefield

gift shop and the holy relics on

sale at the swap meet.

 

Uneasy on a bed of sidewalk.

 

I found ajar the door to all souls,

the halls of heaven, the limbo breath,

the taqueria psalm.

 

Gave away all souls. Gave up.

Gave ear to the spiritual song of all souls.

Gave over.

 

This is the time of biopsy and suicide

anniversary and all souls and lost tribes

and the forgotten word and the evil

choices and darkness on the face

of the deep and uncertain weather and

brittle-leaf sidewalks and the requiem for

David and future nakedness and the

voices of the silent and the salt of the

earth and the knee limp and skin spoil

and eye dim and the small child in

the church aisle and the autobiography

of all souls.

 

 

Patrick T. Reardon

6.18.25

 

This poem originally appeared in After Hours, Winter, 2025.