The Silence Of Jesus Poem by Paul Hartal

Truth hides and drifts in silence.
Standing before Pontius Pilate,
Jesus said:
“I have come into the world,
to testify to the truth” (John 18: 37) .
To which Pilate retorted with:
“Quid est veritas? ” What is truth?

Truth is porous,
absorbent and amorphous.
And even if it is unsettled for us,
it still can be absolute.

Truth and silence are interlinked.
In the art of conversation
truth wrapped in silence
can communicate, forming a bridge
between your mind
and that of others.

But silence also can give rise
to tragic misunderstandings.
The odds are always high
that those who don’t understand
your silence, will not understand
your words either.

Under ill-starred circumstances
truth becomes an unfelicitous refugee.
Those who move in the shadows,
the forces of darkness oppressing life,
may conceal the truth, substituting it
for silence, a silence
that declares the lie.

Still, unrelenting,
truth hides and drifts in silence.
But what is actually truth?
What is this immaterial aletheia,
hidden in substance,
floating in curly currents
and soaring to higher dimensions?
Is its essence bared sincerity?
Truth appears to reveal itself
in factuality,
in the actuality of the real
and in the reality of the actual.

Is then truth simply the opposite of
falsehood? No more than
faithful correspondence?
Or is truth an intrinsic property?
An accord between
assertion and reality?
Or just an inner feeling,
a heartfelt experience,
like the beauty
of flowers and stars?

Truth hides and drifts in silence.
Standing before Pontius Pilate,
Jesus said:
“I have come into the world,
to testify to the truth”.
To which Pilate retorted with:
“Quid est veritas? ” What is truth?

And then he left
without waiting for a reply.