Look at a life emptied of truth.
Look at a young one emptied of youth
Or a strong conviction emptied of proof.
Carrier-bag body and scrap paper soul
Witlessly whipped up and rolled
By each whisper of wind that blusters by;
Demanding, commanding control.
Shifting and shuddering,
Placeless and peaceless,
Hard to fix eyes on –
Without truth,
A life without hope or horizon.
But how that wily white-lie lies,
Flashing pale and pretty eyes,
To make us forget truth’s touch and scent,
As bit by bit the facts are bent to fit our darker whims;
And so it begins...
And unperceived we wander on
And truth’s last pale flicker’s gone
And in heavy dark we stand alone.
Do not settle for this busying and dizzying half life.
No, no, no!
We were made for eagle flights;
Mastery of airflow, to absorb truth like rain and grow!
We were made for truth,
All fashioned to be filled with and fuelled by truth.
And if pulled apart from truth
We stand to lose track of our very selves.
As empty shelves or hollow shells,
The noise coming back just distorts that which enters.
Like soulless, sparkless towns without centres
Or silently swinging noiseless bells.
And the heavenly ear leans hard to hear
The honest shouts of teeth-gritted, indignant, foul-mouthed fear;
Far sweeter is that ugly sound
Than tick-box, truthless, trifling rounds
Of thinly disguised pride and pretence.
For truth does not fear truth
And far greater is the use
Of an honest heart and upturned bloodied hands,
Than a thousand well presented plans.
And deeper than mere common sense
A truthful life which risks the tense and terse,
Will always in the end unearth
The treasure in the ground beneath.
So bring honest praise through gritted teeth
And shout your way through bitterest grief.
For the very last thing from which a soul should part
Is an honest call to heaven’s heart.
In truth alone can Truth himself
Reveal and heal and slip by stealth
The slow and gradual grains of grace,
Which grow within our darkest place.
To truth to truth, oh let me fly;
For without truth, then nought am I.