Consequential Truth

“Put your faith in the essential, enduring things beyond the nightmare of the mutable appearances and you will find inner peace.”  ~ Jonathan Jones, “Gorgeous peaks and dangerous waves:  this sublime show is a timeless pleasure,” The Guardian, October 20, 2026, p. 9

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.  ~ John Keats

“I know the colour of that blood,–it is arterial blood–I cannot be deceived in that colour; that drop is my death-warrant. I must die” ~ words in letter by Charles Brown and ascribed there to John Keats (as reported in Milnes’ Life and Literary Remains).

The men in boats, whether Buddhist or not,

Are going to their salt-sea deaths.  That cliff

Of whacking wave, ephemeral, will blot

Them out.  Philosophy and Buddha, if

Those two are One or Not, will not save guys

In fishing skiffs when momentary waves

Crash over them.  Though Buddha may be wise,

Kyoto temples and cathedral naves

Will not save one poor fisherman, not one.

Enlightenment might tell him he is more

Than self, is One with All, still with a ton

Of death we’ll be dragged to that Other Shore.

  Essential Truth is bound up in the faith

    Of physics.  All the rest is like a wraith.

© Phillip Whidden