Interbound

It’s something

women have always known: the truth lives not in facts,

but in perception.

Take as your example Joan of Arc. The truth:

(as any tomboy could tell you) she was a warrior.

(as any Catholic could tell you) she was a saint.

(as any closeted teenager could tell you) she was a gender icon.

(as one specific court could tell you) she was a heretic.

Her real life has no trade with the truth.

Take as your example a chair. The truth:

(as any artist could tell you) it is white.

(as any carpenter could tell you) it is made of wood.

(as anyone with tired legs could tell you) it is for sitting.

(as one specific granddaughter could tell you) it is from 1965 and held an old woman every day until yesterday.

What does the chair’s existence have to do with the truth -- except in its interpretation?

There is a school of philosophy that holds

that the existence of something derives entirely from its perception.

That fir tree exists because

we see and name it; we

create the truth of the world.

Outside of the adherents of this discipline, we tend to believe in facts and interpretations.

One: a thing exists, with objective qualities and a real existence.

Two: we see the thing and interpret its existence; we name it and give it purpose.

Except, of course, this is wrong.

Existence and interpretation

are two faces of the same goddess; she

shows us both her sides at once.

Like the body, it’s a merged palimpsest, held together

with chalky ropes

of interbound veins and

nerves.

#poetry