Up For Guessing

Up For Guessing

Long ago I wrote that there are

Only a handful of things that a person

Can know with any great certainty

And I said the only absolute truth

A person can be sure of

Is that they're breathing

Now, fifty-five years down the line

I've seen things happen so terrible

That they reached

To the marrow of my bones,

I've seen things happen

So beautiful beyond

The conveyance of any words

That they imprinted

Their images into my soul

And I've rediscovered several times over

That both truths and reality itself

Are as malleable as the combined imaginations

Of seven billion human minds can make them

Fifty-five years on,

I've still only found a few absolute truths

---That I'm breathing

And that breath is a gift all by itself

Far beyond any human measure

And that the great rivers

Of love run as deep as the farthest reaches

Of all the stars at night

Everything else

Is pretty much up for guessing

And that is a very good thing, my friend,

Because within uncertainty

Are hidden freedom,

Hope, and the seeds of creativity

Dewey Dirks