Saturday 7 April 2012

Poem by the Norwegian writer
Olav H. Hauge, 1908-1994


Truth

Truth is a shy bird
a Roc that
roams outside time,
at times before
at times after.
Some say it
doesn’t exist
those who have seen it
stay silent.

I have never thought of truth
as a domestic bird,
but it it was such,
you can try stroking it along its feathers
rather than chasing it into a corner
till it turns owl-eyed and would claw you.

Others consider truth
a cold knife-edge,
it is both
yin and yang,
the snake in the grass,
and the wren lifting from the eagle
when it thinks itself highest.

I have also seen
truth dead:
its eyes those of a frost-stiffened hare.

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