A Truth Rejoiced (1997)

Truth in my youth
was granted me by others.
But with my age,
truth struggles to appear.
Now truth comes out most times
With work and sometimes pain.

Though crude my poetry is
it is no less my truth,
and telling it requires
sometimes intensity of thought,
sometimes engendered creativity.
Completion kindles greatest satisfaction.

Aghast! My tongue unveils in charitable lies
at times more gospel than attempted truth can.
Remember I: lies only soothe; truth heals.

Today I cerebrate:
Inside my aging body
walks with me yet
my youthful passionate self.
My cluttered mind today explores
the complex feelings from my past.

In today's freedom
sits my yesterday's slavery.
My often stagnant mind
dares paint my tongue with offered wit.
And many cohabitant contradictions appear:
My smiling frown meets frowning smile.
Beneath my melodrama
rests yet my principle.

Always coexisting these,
both to make appearances
In and out
On top, beneath.

At last I truly know
The way Egyptians knew.
Accept defection and duplicity
not fretting with them more.
Ambiguities amass:
For every triumph, failure
Juxtaposing.

Having everything
Yet nothing,
Assures having nothing
Yet everything.

Heed warning: Be careful of your daily life
a mastery of pretense is,
seeks not discovery;
defers both truth and joy.

And though it be with work
Go seek art's galleries, sanctuaries,
symphonies, or good books, too
and there find truth revitalized.
Go labor both of soul and mind.

Don't we postulate more questions
Than simple truths can serve?
With dogma, verse and ritual
From these our lives more meaning get,
Provide superior dignity.
While simpler truths reveal our naked souls
... most men can't bear to see.

Life's process at its end
provides the final verse.
For passion, for passivity
Before our deaths our lives.
And both are true.
 

Though humbled I by others' knowledge,
More humbled I by others' love.
Love is truth and ready to forgive...
Forgiving even you and me.
Alone, this knowledge bodes all happy life.