Waltzing with Shadows

 

If one questions what one believes -

Then that - that was believed is in question?

Or does doubt have little else to do

Then to palaver with opposition -

Only to discover that the reservations

Are simply rhetorical glimmers - it is their nature,

Never to understand the value nor the weight of one’s word.

If what one believes that standing right or wrong

Is not a pinnacle but merely a contrary position to hold

And be dismissed as simply an opposing seat

Holding peer judgement and sending verdict

Based strictly on inward coded strains of false depth

Superficially covered with old garments of arguments

Patched quilts to please custom, tradition or worse - ignorance?

Should change befall upon you unexpectedly

And upset your basket full of idioms.

Which euphemisms should be collected

To reset broken truths that were once believed.

Or will these notions remain static as a mountain range;

Or will they be a tomorrow like open sea

To the unknown where the Pequod chased the beast.

If one lives only at night where the stars are the past

Blinking their truth about an existence into this moment

Will you see only in the shades and tones of black?

Will the prevailing shadows be your chiaroscuro painting

Depicting only what the moonlight can hint at?

Will the shadows be your only reference of life without color

If the night is your world – must you live in sleep forever?

Should the sun be always at the pivot without night?

Will you then believe only what you can see clearly as real

And all imaginations be castaways beyond this static realm

Never changing - never moving - never turning – never day or night.

What cycle will you mark if nothing is passing nor settings nor rising?

Will the uniformity become a blend of same with no shame

Because everything and everyone is always the same?

If shadows that waltz across the cave walls were cast

There by a light being swallowed by the abyss within the black hole

And persistence was only necessary to peer into the darkness;

To stare into the abyss and all the while the abyss looks back

And whatever monster, whichever beast one wrestles 

One could become its lineament – a mirror reflecting back -

For what one sees is what one may become.