Friday, August 05, 2005

The Poet and the Fool

The Poet and the Fool

Who is the poet most of all?
He who speaks eloquence of words?
He who speaks eloquence of heart?
He who speaks eloquence of both?
Or the fool who knows nothing at all?

I am the fool,
Who knows little of words,
Who knows little of the heart,
And much less of how they go together,
And yet I feel neither a fool nor a poet

So where I am left?
Where am I right?
Or am I just wrong
And still a fool and not a poet?

Some applaud simple words
With complex meanings.
Others applaud complex words
With simple meanings.
Still others applaud just the words themselves
And how they might sound
Or look on paper.

Some proclaim greatness in meaning
While some proclaim greatness lies in feeling.
But even some proclaim greatness in the
Smile they bring
Laugh they cause
Tear they invoke
Motivation they raise
Conviction they stir
Beliefs they shake
Faith they strengthen
Realities they speak.

But I?
Not I.
I consider only truth.
For a fool knows little, but truth
For he at least knows he is just a fool
While others still believe they are poets.

Words.
So powerful.
So weak.
They try to say so much,
But say so little of the truth.
Words bind themselves by things they cannot tell.
The truth.

That which conceals itself so shallow
We think it only some thin veneer
to be penetrated
by seeking minds who know
not the end nor the beginning
because there is none.

So do they give it up?
No.
They fight still to say
That which has already been said.
Like taking the sands of the shore
And rearranging them
Time after time
Thinking the shore will suddenly reveal itself
Differently.

They do not see
The sea.
It alone repeats
And rearranges the shore.
While we search the sands
The sea speaks what has been said before.
Truth cannot be defined by what is said
About the shore today
For it will yet be changing tomorrow.
But, the sea will be here ever repeating
The same rhythm
Over and over again.

Truth is not a moment in time defined
By the picture taken now,
But by all the pictures taken
Over all time.

While the sea remains the same.
Repeating, ever repeating,
The truth.

The poet?
A photographer only
Taking pictures of our arrangements
Of the sand.

Will he always turn his back to the great author
Of truth?
Or will the fool
who dares enjoy the crashing waves
Above his head
Attempt to feel the truth
And scare away
To the security of the shore
And the work of our own hands?

Thus the poet and the fool?
They are the same.
Each failing to have the words
That can bind truth
In time.

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