If "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" doesn't make you think twice about the order of things, we don't know what will. It reminds us how there is more to existence beyond the lives we experience directly. It questions how much we are conscious of and how much of our actions and feelings are governed by the soul. And it asks the age-old question: why bother with all this in the first place?
Questions About Life, Consciousness, and Existence
- The first line is, "The eyes open to a cry of pulleys." We can assume the eyes belong to the human. Why do you think Wilbur uses eyes to connect the human to the soul?
- Does the soul leave the body every day, or are these occasional, special moments? Does the poem come down either way on this question?
- Do you think the spiritual presence is helpful to humans? How does it affect their lives?
- Can the soul exist without the body? How about vice versa?
Chew on This
This poem shows us a whole powerful, secret world we're unaware of that governs our entire lives. We're not actually in control of anything, which probably would have been useful information yesterday.
There are two modes of existence in this poem: the body's and the soul's. The soul can exist without the body, but the body definitely needs the soul. Hardly seems fair.