I went to a Poetry Reading,

where a Philosopher

    sat in the troupe.

When the conversation

    turned to the ‘Truth,’

it changed the whole venue

    and meaning.

 

“Truth,” said the wise-man,

    “is like a Noon day Sun:

When too bright, it is too blinding;

    you cannot see the real True.”

 

“But, would one see it much better,

      than to see it much later on –

He who is furthest,

      has the much truer view.”

 

 

It was then I broke in,

it was then that I said:

“Let us now read 

    a poem here by Frost.

It fits in well now, indeed.”

 

“His ‘Mending Wall’ 

    has something to say

on Truth, I do think, 

    or Pray.”

 

“For Poetry, too,

     in its own way,

sheds light on the Truth,

    in word-play.”

 

 

 

 

“But Robert belied!”

the wise-man did say.

 

“A wall makes us Foes,

    it doesn’t build friends.

It separates good,

    makes bad, when it should

draw, in together, all men.”

 

 

 

I squirmed in my feet.

 

I writhed on my chair.

 

I was furthest by seat,

from our brighest Start there.

 

 

 

“Good walls make us Good neighbors.

Bad walls make the worst fiends.”

 

“But you are too close,

    so why belabor,

to see what the poem really means?”

 

“That Bright Star

we all call as wisdom,

    too close and high overhead,

Come! 

Come close beside me,

    and see what it was that you said.”

 

“Down here, the Truth is much clearer;

down here, so far from your head.”

 

“To see that its Truth is much clearer,

    come here, 

from that Bright Star, instead.”

 

 

 

 

 

©2013, Marvin Loyd Welborn