Truth versus Perspective

I may attempt the 30 poems in 30 days for April this year, as I did last. But I might not share the poems so widely. I’ve already written one for today, but I’ll share something less gripping (;-) in its place, instead.

We think we know what we’ve learned is true.
We hope our teachers told us the truth.
But truth is a malleable metal whose shape
and willingness to bend depends on temperature
and composition, pressure and position.

We think we know what we’ve learned is true.
We hope the lessons of our experience are valid.
But lessons depend on perspective and perspective
depends on belief and belief relies on truth
that consorts with multiple malleable metals.

Commonality is a wishful target, a place to be
happy and hopeful, full of decency and resolve.
But we’re fighting tooth and nail against any hint
of compromise, any subtle clue that our unyielding
assertions are anything but perfection.

Until we back away from profound certainty that
only we have the answers; until we accede to the
beauty of even monsters in our midst; until we
consider point-of-view shapes our dilemma as well as
our vision, we will suffer broken perspectives.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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