Being yourself
Via self-determination,
Maybe none of us can comprehend
Who you are,
As when reading your books,
We must be patient enough for
The overwhelming torrents of precise reason to
Resolve in relief from the world’s confusion,
We must try to remember at once all your facets
Hidden from view
By a freedom interested in more than
Self-congratulation or honor,
Even if wincing every so often at the thought of
Your life’s labor being
“Largely ignored,”
Since if more people took up your challenge,
How different the world would look.
No, we struggle to adequately
Appreciate
Your sacrifices on our behalf,
Because you’ve made endless effort look
Fashionably easy,
Groaning infrequently and only long enough for us to
Be reminded that you’re human,
Not a machine philosophizing,
But a soul suffering the physical world,
The conundrums of ego,
And the brutality of our times,
As anyone else,
Having to make your own happiness
And earn your ethical worth.
But how can we take in your full grandeur
Without having accomplished equal excellence?
And what do my thoughts of you matter,
If they are set in the landscape of opinion,
Which you long ago abandoned for a portrait of truth,
In which you, the artist, figure?
Maybe you’ve long ago achieved that level,
Of being only knowable to yourself,
Least concerned by others’ judgments,
And so in vain and in earnest,
I try again to pass a comment
Of praise,
restless with admiration,
With your impact being concrete in my life,
Though ultimately you are a mystery,
Changing forms with moods- yours and my own,
With time’s passage uncovering more and more
Revelations
Of my relative level of maturity,
Apparent in my understanding of your character,
Ever surprising yet ever most familiar
