-- Knowing the Unknown --

by John Herlihy

An eerily strange message,

When the horn is blown.

Felt as a rite of passage,

As if knowing the unknown.

It’s not what you see,

It’s what you don’t see.

It’s not what you know,

It’s what you don’t know.

We hardly know the known,

Facts can seem so pedantic.

Researched and home-grown,

Not what we think romantic.

Messages of facts can be cryptic,

We don’t know what they mean.

Messages of the unknown mystic,

They inspire with what they seem.

Knowing can feel as unknowing,

Only in the mind, not in the deed.

While unknowing can feel as knowing,

In the face of mystery, we take heed.

Not to know when we began knowing,

Only the pleasure what knowing means.

Truly to know the great, long unknowing,

Quietly imagining what unknowing means.

What can we do without the unknown,

With no motivation to seek and to learn.

Universal secrets into life’s fabric sewn,

The driving force of our ability to yearn.

Give me the knowing found in unknowing,

Facts without meaning I gladly surrender.

No use in the unknowing found in knowing,

Life’s mystery what I want to remember.

At the heart of unknowing likes the known,

Mystery revealed that true knowledge brings.

In the universal core, awakening full-blown,

Perfection, beauty, bliss as the heart sweetly sings.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Saturday 20 April 2024