Quest

By what right say you are a man?
By whose name do you lay claim
To name yourself?
Whence your authority to hold identity?

I know a man who knew himself
With such clear knowing that we could not speak
Such certainty – Opaque to human eye
Such confidence – His soul I could not reach
When my own self quivers tense, alert
Taut and tensing search and questing
seeking only to know, to find By Whom?

To be a man
To be in Being’s chain
Created
Confused
Caught
At last, knowing by being known

29 November 2004