The Noise of Many Places

Truth will always find its friends. I understand that because truth knows me and calls me by name. Who is truth? Pontius Pilate asked the question, 'What is truth?', because he did not know the being who stood before him. Would you or I have acted differently? Pilate was in a position of authority - he was required to act. He did not have the benefit of hindsight; the book had not been written yet. Would we have acted differently? And yet truth remains. It doesn't matter that militant atheists will not give it a shape, a name, an identity. Truth will always find its friends. Sometimes they will emerge shyly, unexpectedly, at the point of defeat. Truth is the quiet shoulder in the turbulent man. It wears its chequered coat in company. Who would not want it to be a harlequin, a thing of many varied colors? And yet it stands by the person who bears its single color alone - the person who has no friends. It will stand with him or her until the end of the earth.

The stillness of truth rebuffs all agitation; it needs no convincing or persuasion of its right. It doesn't waste its time in condemning what is wrong. It lets its silence reach into the noise of many places.

Truth

Will truth stay in itself and shield its light?

It will not shun the market-square or hide

from people who've never learned debate.

It wears it chequered coat in company

but knows its friends by name and calls them out.

Yet it will stand by one who is alone,

who bears its colour with no one else around.

Even until the end of earth it will stand

when every false attack has gone to ground.

Jay

©landar 2011. All rights reserved

Image: The Seated Harlequin, Picasso