been in trouble all my life
for digging truth,
unearthing reluctant bones.
been driven with other shovelers
to shallow harbors
where thin-lipped
coloration specialists
where thin-lipped
coloration specialists
quibble over niggling nits.
I'll tell you
like it isn't.
© 2010 by Kathryn Feigal. All rights reserved.
"...no matter how hard I try to be brutally honest with myself, about myself, I keep changing, morphing, evolving/devolving. I've seen cherished beliefs crash and burn. This business of truly knowing the Truth about oneself is a never-ending challenge. As for divining the truth about others? It's a matter of faith. "- Jonas Dikinis
"...we should all aspire to the truth, but we should be realistic when it comes to our abilities. Truths are not cold facts and the simple - okay, not very simple - truth is that everything I do is a consequence of everything I have done before. We're constantly course correcting, a degree here, a degree there. Truth is also and assemblage, something we construct over years. The best we can end up with is something that resembles the truth in just the same way a photograph resembles the sitter, an aspect of the sitter at least, at that point in time. In that respect truth is like memory. There are old truths in fact probably the ony way to identify any truth is after the fact which is why the sculptor or the painter steps back from his work from time to time because when he is involved in it he is too close to the truth to see it for what it is." - Jim Murdoch
"...and that's the truththththth!" - Lily Tomlin, as Edith Ann
...leaving town now. I appreciate all those who have stuck with me and my very unpoemlike daily offerings. I appreciate all your careful readings and comments. Don't know if poetry is 'my thing,' but connecting with y'all certainly is! Please click on the Jim and Jonas links. You won't be disappointed (that is, if you are interested in The Truth).
Safe travels and happy trails, Kass.
ReplyDeleteI love those last two lines! Have a lovely out of town experience.
ReplyDeletefor digging truth,
ReplyDeleteunearthing reluctant bones.
I like this,..and your quotations....very much...
I've called you the best Girlock Holmes for months. You are an excellent sleuth!
ReplyDeleteRecently on Elisabeth's blog, I was commenting on some of my family's dynamic. My parents and I recall certain events quite differently. I've finally come to recognize that my truth may not be someone else's truth. I use the words "my truth" a lot when I'm telling one of our stories.
Have a good trip and hurry back.
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as truth - it's a made up thing to have everyone tied in knots trying to find it, theirs, someone else's, might as well all be looking for pixies - stop looking for it and have a great trip!
ReplyDeleteA post that goes beyond great. It's in the category of "top great".
ReplyDelete"There are truths on this side of the Pyranees, which are falsehoods on the other." ~Blaise Pascal
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely trip! c u soon
loveNlight
Gabi
Do you ever get tired of hearing how good your writing is?
ReplyDeleteYou have SUCH a way with words!
I love the truth poem above, Kass. It reads a little like a blues lyric.
ReplyDeleteWhere are you bound?
I tend to agree with Emily Dickinson:
ReplyDelete"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant"
Thanks for all your well wishes. I'm headed for St. George, Utah - redrock country - if the weather cooperates.
ReplyDeleteMARIA, I like the idea of slant truth.
DICK - I changed the title to this because of your comment. Thanks.
That's the 'truth' of it all Kass, how difficult it is to get at this thing called truth.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Emily Dickinson and Maria. To write creatively, to get at the truth even when you are writing about events that once occurred you must rely on imagination and memory. Memory for recall, to get to the facts, imagination to fill the gaps.
Even when the matter is researched to death, imagination still plays a part in rethinking and restructuring your initial impressions.
There’s always a slant, a direction, an impression to be had. Something that captures your imagination. As the writer writing about someone else’s life, your own inevitably creeps in and directs your attention, as if you’re wearing tinted spectacles, slanted to the truth, but slanted as Emily Dickinson writes in her poem, tell the truth, but tell it slanted.
Because the truth is too hard to bear, too sharp, too overwhelming. It dazzles like the sun. I suspect it’s akin to the role of the mother with her newborn. A mother must process the information that impinges on her baby in such a way that her baby can tolerate it.
Sorry to go on so. A great topic here and very dear to my heart.
Thanks, Kass.
Your recent posts have been so rich and varied. I particularly like the blackbirds praising Becket - Ivan the Terrible makes a great illustration - and the buried hatchets. And of course "I'll tell it like it isn't." Have a good trip.
ReplyDeleteELISABETH - How can you write so much and so well? Are you a fast thinker? A fast writer? I have to stew and stew over what to say. It's funny, when I toss off a quick poem/idea sometimes, it's the one people seem to like, or at least comment on. I read the discussions in the comment section of your blog and your words are so thoughtful there to everyone and here too. I appreciate how you see into things and come out with such a fresh approach.
ReplyDeleteMAURI - I'm glad you liked the birds praising Beckett. It's a line into which I put a lot of thought and rewrites. It has a lot to do with "what follows."