For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

White Bread, Potato Chips, Pop and “the Immense Human Feast”

The poem tells the reader to put down “that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop” (Line 1); to turn off “that cell phone, computer, and remote control” (Line 2). The first three items are foods; the next three are technology. All six are distractions that may be less than nurturing. By putting these items next to one another, the speaker suggests that they are similar.

White bread, potato chips, and pop are food staples with denuded nutritional value. Potato chips are vegetables that have been fried in oil. Pop is water that has been mixed with sugar and corn syrup. White bread is wheat that has been bleached, broken down, and stripped of nutrition. These items are called “junk food,” and juxtaposing them alongside technological devices suggests that the latter are also a form of junk food.

These items cause harm by distracting the mind and spirit. Midway through the poem, the speaker says: “Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time” (Line 15). This echoes the opening lines, where the speaker depicts a person who has lost their spirit by eating empty calories and engaging in empty distractions. These are items of the “human feast” (Line 15); they steal time, like thieves.

Fire

The speaker describes beings who sit around “the fire that has been there without time” (Line 8). Traditionally, fire is a symbol of the soul, or of a life energy that animates physical matter. Fire is warming; it transforms what it touches, but it cannot itself be touched by human hands. It lacks a form that can be contained, but it can drastically change any form it touches.

These qualities are similar to the way mystics and theologians describe the soul. A soul is ethereal and untouchable, but moves inside a body, bringing it to life. Even after a fire is extinguished it can be rekindled, making it seem eternal. The fire in this poem suggests that eternal quality, outside of time.

The fire is a “circle” (Line 17). Like fire, the circle is symbolic of eternity. In a social context, it reflects equality. People who sit in a circle face one another; no person is elevated above others or distinguished as separate from anyone else. The image of soul guardians sitting around a fire for all eternity suggests communion in which all creatures are equals, ready to welcome others.

Distance and Darkness

The term “spirit” personifies an amorphous part of a person. The speaker says the spirit is “wandering the earth” (title), which can be read metaphorically. A wandering spirit means that a person feels less energetic, less happy, and less capable or aware. To say the spirit is wandering is a way of saying that a person does not feel spirited or energized.

The “journey” (Line 26) which one must take to find their spirit represents the process of healing, letting go of guilt, and becoming whole. To “[w]elcome your spirit back from its wandering” (Line 26) reflects a change of attitude, mood, or sense of awareness. The speaker notes: “The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more” (Line 14). As with a literal journey, the path to reuniting with one’s spirit may be long and uncertain, and anyone on such a path will need help along the way.

The speaker says a person, after getting their spirit back, must “help the next person find their way through the dark” (Line 30). This extends the metaphor that the spirit is “wandering” physically away from a person’s body. It suggests that the spiritless one is lost in the dark, which traditionally symbolizes ignorance or unhappiness. They may be unaware that they are lost, as in the darkness they can’t see clearly.