Integrity

In a culture of words dressed-up

with glamorous trappings,

repeated, listened to ad nauseam

because they paint pictures

we want to believe,

measure of truth is irrelevant

to these verbal fabrications.

Constructing reality from stories

feeding myths of comfort, security;

shirking creation’s inherent interconnection;

seeking distant laps as blame’s target;

all strategies for overheating supercollider

where cracked facade loses cooling water,

hate’s half-life assaults hope head-on.

Survival not reserved for fittest;

instead for those who recognize

enormity of the tapestry in whom

individual existence is but a thread.

Integrity not so much a virtue

as a way of living with this recognition:

in the end, all stories are one.

© 2012 Todd Jenkins