“The *** or ethereal soul is associated with the Liver System, and is the aspect of consciousness that continues to exist—in more subtle realms—even after the death of the body.”*
When *** walks, I walk. When he wanders, untethered, I go with him. With her. My eyes close, and ***’s will be wide. He leads the way. She leads me, away from my bed to stand at window, which I open.
*** will lift the sash so I can lean out over the street where someone is screaming. Always screaming. Known to walk after the body dies, *** is roused by this call. But the chill, the smell of the distant river, wakes me. And *** retreats.
I’ve been told to put bells on my window so I will wake when it’s opened. When I open it. The bells of the Cathedral ring in the dark hours of all this animation: wandering spirit of my organs, custodial ghost of my art. He wants me grounded. She wants me flown.
I am here, I tell him—her: not lost. Aloft. A-sleep or awake, I am led, leashed, walking in the wake of our odd arrangement.
-- by Nathaniel Bellows
st.. 25 march 2014
American author of "On this Day" a well-received first novel, published in February 2003.
The son of a physician, he chose instead the artistic path. He began his career as a visual artist and had his poems published in prestigious literary magazines before his work of fiction was published.