What Is Truth? Poem by Edward Clapham

What is truth

What is truth? asked the patient;
Is it the cold (words of)
Diagnosis of impending death, grave numbers
And shadowy images that spell out
The compass of a life?

Is it the waving poppies that
Mark the fallen in Flanders fields;
Ironic memorials to youth and broken dreams,
Damning testament to grandiose indifference,
And doing the right thing.

Or is it the sad moment
When realisation comes; that this
Life together will become this life apart,
And roads fork and take different paths,
Disuniting souls.

I looked on truth when your
Courage deserted you, and choice was lost,
And you could not find the way to
Take the risk that I might fail you,
As others did.

But was it truth? Indeed, there followed
Cold words, and chilling indifference,
And still I recoil from your silence;
But the images of your loving smile
Haunt me.

In truth there is a finality
And palpable certainty of ending;
In your silence, there is unknowiness,
Whether all was fiction, or whether
you care still.

Edward Clapham
January 2014