You ask me questions
that are too much to answer.
My certainty is only this –
I have none.
To talk in sureties and absolutes
is to divide the world into segments.
Is to quantify the worth of everything,
by a measure of right and wrong.
Now instead,
ask me what it is I believe.
Lack of certainty
does not mean an absence of faith.
Rather faith always makes up
the balance of what we do not know.
And mystery makes imagination ripe,
and reverence for life, and awe
cause us to uphold
what’s not understood,
rather than judge
all it is that we fear.
So next time you are asked
what it is of which you are certain,
reply, that the danger of being right,
is to discard all of which we are wrong.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
September 2019
Living Tree Poetry 