Tell Me True by Aaron W. Hillman

Excerpted from Tell Me True

Shall I be an honest man? What is honesty?
Is it not the human being saying what man
believes? Is it honest to speak in tragedy,
when you know you might hurt someone? If that truth
ran then all the bigots would speak in honesty. So,
now a young voice tells me to be honest and thus
is a command. I cannot fail. I cannot leave.
I must follow where stone statures are sure to grieve.
You cannot blaze upon the earth like a newborn
sun until you have gone through the blackness of space
and are born out of the pressure of that cold, lorn
cauldron. Hone your work to the place where the efface
critic, nay-sayer, will have to seek minute points
and effusion of spirit oils the waiting joints.
Some are ready now, let them live. Upon this earth
a seed will root. Nurture them warmly until birth.

There is no value in words in print. The song bird's
value comes when a few hear the sounds and are moved
by the sounds and are changed by the sounds and the
sounds and the ideas are graven and soul approved
by that few. And when this moment happens, you will
be remembering, I was honest. I, the kiln.

But why do you give me this god-like quality?
A song soars by itself! Asks no one to be free.

{Poem by Aaron W. Hillman}