John Locke's Sock, or; Selfhood

Good ole empirical minded John Locke,

Though surely bound to task to make them match,

Held deep thoughts where, like a drawer, lay his socks.

His favourite one was prone to holes, though duly patched

As when a diabolical gap blank as minds grew.

He sewed it shut (or filled it?) with a different cloth

And his cherished sock, growing old, was made as new

And preserved as he desired it to be: As it was.

But our thoughts of what we deem same we upend

As material fades and begets anew.

And we wonder on it, again, then again,
And read in to our desire a hope it is true.

Shells over spirit, we are held fast by cells

That shed and repair like the lost limb of

Lazarus lizard, always fixing itself.

We are darned cloth, changelings enough

To wonder: are we preserved as we were?

And spirit, too, is mind fraying and unwinding.

But the illusory thread of thought is the allure

That we are always the same, invisible minding

Of memory like a favourite sock.
What makes me the same as a minute ago?
What changes in me at the strike of a clock?
Who will I be in an hour or so?

Is it this that holds hard and fast the seams

As time unravels the ‘self.’ Time gone wears thin.
Though as bare the threads of my memories of me,

I remember Tom so well but know I am not him.

I see no me that ponders now this very moment.
Is it a thing of the brain, and a soul attached?

Yet thoughts of now, and remembrance of when,

Seem a seamless whole, though duly patched.