What Poetry Taught Me Poem by Kenneth Maswabi

In life
It's not the sweetness
That will build you
Sugar is sweet
But it will destroy you
Words are beautiful
But they can destroy you
It's not the sourness of life
That contains lessons of bitterness
It's the sweeter part of life
That is sprinkled with toxins
Don't look at emptiness
And be fearful
Look at emptiness
And see beyond your imagination
Don't look at the mirror
And see yourself
Hold the mirror
And be your true self
It's not always easy
To undress ourselves
And be naked of our thoughts (ego)
It's sometimes embarrassing
To look foolish
But it's inside foolishness
That you will find your true being
Let go of your ego
Find your madness
It's not the logical things in life
That will open the door to your heart
It's the sparkling molecules of nothingness
That will fill your heart with happiness
It's the blanket of darkness
That brings a new day
Don't be tempted
To swallow everything you see or hear
Sometimes it's the knowledge
That is full of toxins
Our body, mind and soul
Are not templates of our physicality
But garments of knowing
It's the deeper knowledge
Not coming out of the five senses
But buried inside our consciousness
That makes the framework of true reality
Logic is a construct of our mindset
Yes, it's helpful most of the time
But it has limitations
Especially when it comes to the truth
It's not a path to a deeper knowledge of the truth
It's a layer on the outer part of awareness
Poetry taught me to remove my blindness
And helped me to drink from the river of life
Not with my mouth or mind
But with my heart
Awareness is knowing your way, path and destiny
Knowledge is knowing a subset of your environment
Poetry taught me to be aware of that which I don't know
And to hold that which I know inside a microscope
Poetry is the petri-dish of consciousness
Where we can grow knowledge
Out of nothingness
And see the petals of life
Begin to form
And the canopy of life bloom
It's a beautiful experience
To be inside the magical laboratory of Poetry

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