If you should believe
The hole truth
And nothing
A butt the truth
You may well be
Full if it
Perfectly primed
For letting go
Unable to be taken
Any more
By a singular won
Given
By an other
This poem, like many of my poems, can be understood (or misunderstood) many ways. Mostly, this is a poem about both hubris and hope. If we are so full of ourselves in our ability to ascertain the truth and we are skeptical enough to find believing nothing as a dominant mode, then we may very well dangerous to others seeking truth. Hubris is the blinding arrogance of our own experience of truth as the dominant mode. This is typically matched by a substantial discounting of others’ experience of truth. Hubris is cynicism producing and the enemy of hope. Hope is able to blossom when our perspective is genuinely open to others’ experiences and whatever current ideology we hold is alive enough to grow in the light of the living truth in other living beings. This is typically paired with a humble attitude toward our own limited body of experiences. I see true humility as a right-sizing of our place and role in the world (and universe). True humility, as most commonly viewed, is not being too big or oversized. Of course, true humility is also served by us rising up to whatever responsibility matches our particular endowment of moral agency and power. Being too small is a vote for humiliation, not humility. The line in the poem, “Unable to be taken,” similarly cuts both ways. “Being taken,” as duped or cheated, is perhaps one of the most unwelcome and trust betraying realities in life. I suspect that it is difficult to overestimate the effort we will employ to avoid such situations. Similarly true, “being taken,” as in being taken by a lover or experience of overwhelming awe, can be profoundly life transforming in previously unimagined ways. I think that the openness and vulnerability inherently in “being taken” inextricably links both forms/meanings. Hardening oneself to being duped or cheated likewise hardens one’s ability and likelihood of enthrallment. By cutting ourselves off from vulnerability and intimacy, we rob ourselves of its upsides, in essence throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I posit that living a life that is not adept at being taken is a life that to that same degree is not fully lived. May you find hope and enthrallment that is worth infinitely more than whatever you have been cheated out of life.
