Devotional Poetry

The Soul's Riddle

The Soul's Riddle

I was created,
         Believing in mankind's spirituality!
This is a creature, with unique abilities.
A larva upon the material plane;
At death become a butterfly freed from its pupa case.

I stepped out of eternity,
         Born into physical reality!
I became a creature blind to its own spirituality,
The larva newly hatched from the egg,
Sees the pupa as the end--not a developmental stage.

I am bound to humanity,
         By steel-like cords that could cripple me!
Free will gives me the choice of destinies.
Does the larva feeding its own desire,
Condemn the butterfly to Hell's eternal fire?

My vision is that of duality,
         Poised between two realities!
Body and spirit, together compose a single entity.
For the larva flight is an impossible dream;
To the butterfly being earthbound an illusion seems.

Poet's Note: ▼

I wrote this in 1984. The inspiration was meditating on the scriptures revealed by Baha'u'llah.