The Man Who Secretly Searches for Sophie

author's note:

Who is the man in this poem?

To answer that question would require a list so long it’d stretch all the way around the world.


THE MAN WHO SECRETLY SEARCHES FOR SOPHIE

The man of this story
lost Sophie so long ago
he doesn’t know he lost her

nor does he realize
how he searches for her

or how he sees her everywhere:

in the glowing pearl earring
found suddenly in a dark theater

in a soft hand print
on a frosted window
highlighted by the moon.

But also in vistas grand:

in a smokey orange sunrise cloud
building high above
a sea of shadowy pink.

So much of life echoes “Sophie”
to this searcher

including the way
the peasant woman in the photo
kneels at the creek as she scrubs
that pile of clothes
--he likes how her long black hair
   hangs down, touching
   the silver rippling water.

Fool that he is
he imagines himself standing near--
hands behind his back--
as he tries to say in broken language
how hot the sun feels.

She then lifts her gentle eyes to him--
a silent knowing gaze
that brings to mind
the monolithic goddess
that appeared in the darkness of a dream
when he felt so helpless.

Absorbed in that second image
our hero suddenly feels
a foundation of love within
the creaky hardwood of his chest:

a stone foundation resolute--immovable.

But in the next moment he turns the page--
though a dreamer, his tolerance for depth
has its limits.

Oh, but I haven’t given up on him:
I believe in time he’ll feel so desperate
He won’t flee
but stay there in his heart

and when he touches that stone
he’ll hear an inner voice--
(strange yet recognized as his own)
and he’ll sense
how those dark hushed tones
joyfully incessantly repeat this name
as a holy incantation:

Sophie…Sophie…Sophie…

Soultime: a novel
© 2021, Michael R. Patton