Proof of Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Inspiration for life, love, hope, happiness…you name it…comes in many shapes and forms. But it's out there, folks, just waiting for us feel our way to it with mind, body and spirit, absorb its energy and let it go to work on our senses, including that old chestnut, sheer willpower. 

This poem is a kenning.

PROOF OF LIFE

When people ask who I am,

I tell them to look within themselves

and to each other, perhaps

uncover those mysteries that haunt us

as we journey through life...

How come we here, why, going where?

Questions on the lips, reason

at the inner ear brooking yet more,

answers found wanting

When people ask who I am

I tell them to look around, take in all

they see, feel, need to explain,

justify or change (but how?) perhaps

expecting me to provide

the cure for a sick world, solutions

to its failing societies,

religions losing sight of a vocation

to reunite who they divide

When people ask who I am,

I tell them to learn the body language

of family, friends, workmates

in the staff room, complete strangers

at bus stops, commuters on trains,

probe those subtle discrepancies between

what we say and what we mean;

stop playing a political correctness game,

give truth its proper name

Who am I? I am the philosophy

that defines who you are

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007, 2019

[Note: The last couplet differs slightly from the version of this poem that appears in  Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]