Dualism for beginners

We don’t choose what we believe in. Toddlers sing-song
you can’t see me, you can’t see me, even though
they’ve only closed their eyes. You know the soul
by how it wakes inside you when you’re looking

in a mirror and you see yourself see you. This strange
unrecognition felt before you learn the difference
between mind and brain, that science can’t locate
the part of us that knows its knowing. There must be days

this first makes sense, but children feel out such riddles
with their hands. Right there in chapter one, this earth
we think we’re other than takes form, and we’re an urge
of breath blown through the dust. The way a child plucks

dandelions and blows the star-shaped seeds through air.
They don’t know they’re made of earth until they fall.