0023 The Truth About Truth, Etc. Poem by Michael Shepherd

Suppose the Greeks were right –
that, though some of us
may seek to climb Olympus
(the rocky scramble exhilarating
in the moist fresh morning,
the scent of coffee, baking bread,
rising from the valley below,
the occasional shout of shepherd to his dog,
up higher, the tiptilt goats surprised,
and then the mist, the thinning air,
the inner urge, ambition
fading, as humility, surrender, grow)

that all of us, fully although seemingly in some degree,
yearn for the True, the Good, the Beautiful,
perhaps not in that order, or at least at first,
and believing or not believing
that ultimately, we may know the state
when in their glory, all these three
might merge, be indistinguishable;

for this, no climb is needed, since
the gods - the Greeks were sure of this -
dwell ever in our hearts; at rest, but
waiting for their call, or ours,
to show us to ourselves, and bursting forth
in what we recognise as enthusiasm..

but for those who love to climb,
who love the view, the upper air,
the risk, the challenge and the sport -
the topmost crags surmounted,
the scree no longer playing its game
of snakes and ladders with our feet and hearts and minds,
the clouds like a white, concealing mystery,
now below us; the gods invisible to ground level eyes
run eagerly to greet us in our hearts; we now
pure oxygen for the others still visible
through breaks in the white clouds of poetry,
climbing on their way; our hearts breathing pure oxygen for them
saying yes the climb is worth it,
the Greeks were right.