It Can’t Be Turned to What It’s Not

What poor soul points out,
What you’d have to claim
Was real, a felt thing
In the world of things,
Is not the point here.

The point here’s the word,
The strange, small word, soul,
Which floats through a few
Tongues but has no root.
Lost word, no one knows

Where soul first came from,
What it meant not Geist
Or ghost. What was soul
To the first of you
To use it to point

To a thought not seen
(Or seen? Will o’wisp?)
That meant part of you
The true soul of you?
It lives on its own

With such a ghost crowd
Of like terms from close
And far kin. It’s not
A term, it turns out,
That fits a neat turn.