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Open Poetry #48
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OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

0 posted 2013-10-02 01:17 PM



CONFESSION
1 June 2013

The older I grow
the more I know
that I don’t know.

I have always been careful of saying
that I know how somebody feels
but I have always felt that I do –
but how can I be so arrogant
as to think I can creep
into the mind and heart
of a lifetime of living
of another being,
no matter who?  

I am forever thinking and saying
that I understand animals
far more than I understand people
so how dare I have the right
to think that I know how a person
feels
or
doesn’t at all?

I have always been
so ready with well-intentioned advice
when I thought it was sought
and it is so difficult to hold back
when I was born with a blackboard behind me
and books and eager faces in front.

So, I hereby confess
that I don’t know nor understand the woes behind
that carefully orchestrated smile,
that turned back,
that stark stare,
and that there are so many heartaches of others
that I simply
am powerless
to fix.

How much I have lost
thinking I know
what I
never
will.

Owl

© Copyright 2013 Diana van den Berg - All Rights Reserved
secondhanddreampoet
Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394
a 'Universalist' !
1 posted 2013-10-02 01:27 PM


so true!

As H.D. Thoreau (with slight modification via Bruce) put it:

"All my 'knowledge' (and experience) only brings me ever closer to my ignorance"

Men claim they 'know' many things
But lo, they have taken wings
All the 'arts' and the 'sciences'
   and myriad appliances ...
The wind that blows
is far, far more
than any man truly 'knows!'

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
2 posted 2013-10-02 02:39 PM


Thank you, Bruce.

Owl

Marchmadness
Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271
So. El Monte, California
3 posted 2013-10-05 01:23 AM


I don't think anyone truly knows the heart of another. If we did then maybe things would be very different.
                                 Ida

jwesley
Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563
Spring, Texas
4 posted 2013-10-05 01:55 AM


Don't know that knowing the heart of another is near as important as knowing the mind of another, for it's there trouble lies.

jimmy

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
5 posted 2013-10-05 04:17 AM


Thank you Ida and Jimmy for reading and thinking about it and commenting.  

You are right, Ida, and that is sad – not that you are right, but what you are right about.  

Jimmy, that is an interesting and debatable point.  I think you may be right in some instances, though in others I think that the heart influences the mind.  

Owl

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