Truth

a poem

Hilma af Klint, public domain

Truth used to be so easy,
it just was.

I never had to give it
much thought.

It was there on the shelves,
lined up in matching sets
of encyclopedia books.
It was what was spoken
on the evening news.

I had no doubts.

I didn’t know truth would
become adjustable,
or that so many would
agree that it should be fungible,
and we could each have
our own reality
exactly however we wanted.

Apparently, this doesn’t have to be
the third planet
from the sun, we live on
(the world could be flat!)

One and one could be
three or five,
(new math!)

The moonwalk could have
been one giant step for mankind
or only a dance
Michael Jackson did
on MTV.