On Truth & Another Pair of Eyes

Books were my window on the world when I was growing up back in the Sixties, with poetry and art offering me a second set of eyes and ears with which to see and hear, listen to and view what was going on within and around.  Books were valued in our family and given as gifts. I could count on receiving one at Christmas and one on my birthday--a hardcover, with my name, a message and the date inscribed on the flyleaf.  In 1970, the gift book I received that held more than I could hold, but spoke to right to my heart at that time was The Complete Works of Carl Sandburg, compiled after his death in 1967.

Today, after reading Neo’s post on her blog entitled, For Gerard, I headed over to American Digest to read with sadness the post she’d put up there under the heading, On Gerard.  In it she shared, in her words, “the news no one wants to hear” regarding Gerard Van der Leun’s recent diagnosis of cancer and  entry into last days under hospice care.   

I spent a long time reading the comments left on both posts, trying to take in and hold the depth of love and sincerity expressed by the hundreds who valued him and appreciated his writing.  They made me aware once again of the positive difference one person can make when they are true to themselves and others.  

As I was looking over his blog  I noticed a poem in the right margin by Carl Sandburg.  

WHO AM I?

My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading "Keep Off."

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.

Reading it made me realize his blog was a lot like the books I’d received as gifts--an invitation to consider truth and view the world through another pair of eyes.