If you want to know what the soul is—
You tribes who love poetry—
I will tell you by the time you turn around;
I will illustrate with a simple example I found.
Listen. If you try and define the act of sex,
As it is commonly known by everyone
It is defined by only two things.
Stop me if I go astray, if I am wrong:
It is sexual exertion and orgasm.
This is sex, whether the person is beautiful or not.
They say sex is desired by nearly all
And night and day we hear its call.
But I do not desire sex
If there is not some beauty in the mix
Which we agreed has nothing to do with sex;
But I will not have sex without it.
But how can I have sex if sex is not what I am after?
How can I refuse a glass of milk
When there is only a glass and milk?
Sex without beauty does not exist for me:
It has never happened and will not happen.
Then exertion and orgasm do not exist for me
Unless something else is present which has nothing
To do with the act itself: beauty.
The soul, then, is like this beauty,
Which is everything, and yet nothing
In terms of how we behave in the physical world.
