The Truth
by Philip Schultz
You can hide it like a signature
or birthmark but it’s always there
in the greasy light of your dreams,
the knots your body makes at night,
the sad innuendos of your eyes,
whispering insidious asides in every
room you cannot remain inside. It’s
there in the unquiet ideas that drag and
plead one lonely argument at a time,
and those who own a little are contrite
and fearful of those who own too much,
but owning none takes up your life.
It cannot be replaced with a house or a car,
a husband or wife, but can be ignored,
denied, and betrayed, until the last day,
when you pass yourself on the street
and recognize the agreeable life you
were afraid to lead, and turn away.
If you’re following the Richard Glossip case as anxiously as I am, you’ll understand when I write that I wish this poem could be tattooed on Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s forearm. I want her to have to look at it every day and face the the truth that she sentenced an innocent man to death.
I’m going to post without much comment. I’m distraught over the Glossip case.
Let me just say that this is a poem to chase you down the street, throwing its questions and accusations like small stones till one hits its mark and you stop to ask, What is my truth? Am I hiding from it? Am I a person who owns too little or too much?
There’s a curious word choice I’d like your take on.
The speaker, catching a glimpse of himself in a shop window perhaps, considers what his life might have been if he had faced “The Truth.”
when you pass yourself on the street
and recognize the agreeable life you
were afraid to lead, and turn away.
An “agreeable” life. Not fabulous, just agreeable. “Living your truth,” as we are often urged to do, is supposed to lead to an amazing life like Oprah’s or Elizabeth Gilbert’s.
“Agreeable” is more realistic. I like it.
I left “The Truth” on Bare Bluff, a beautiful peak 600 ft. above Lake Superior in Copper Harbor, Michigan. Copper Harbor, eleven hours from Detroit, is the farthest point in you can go in Michigan and still be on land. There aren’t many people up there and no cell service at all unless you find the right spot on a certain scenic lookout, Brockway Mountain Drive. Otherwise you have to drive 30 or 40 minutes to make a call. A local waitress says that if someone doesn’t show up for work you have to drive to their house to wake them up.
I love the U.P. and try to return every year. Copper Harbor was by far the most beautiful region I’ve been in. It’s a place of no distractions. There’s Nature—-untouched, pristine, ancient—and you. A place where truths must be faced.
The truth I always feel in the U.P. is that life is large and creation beautiful and I need to be grateful every second of my life. You can’t go to the U.P. and feel like the center of the universe. With your face to the clear sunlight, walking among 400-year old pine trees, climbing over rock shaped by tides and storms, wading into cold Lake Superior so vast and mysterious, you feel small. And that’s a relief. It would be a great vacation spot for Donald Trump when he ends his run.
Philip Schultz was born in 1945 in Rochester, New York, an only child. His father, a Russian- Jewish immigrant died when he was eighteen and left the family bankrupt.
Schultz graduated from San Francisco State University and got his MFA at Iowa Writer’s workshop. He taught at New York University, among other colleges, and founded the The Writers Studio in 1987 in New York City, which he still directs.
He’s published many books of poetry, one novel in verse and a memoir. He was 63 when he won the Pultizer Prize for “Failure.”
His wife is the sculptor Monica Banks. Together they have two sons.
Schultz wrote a moving essay you can read here about his dyslexia. He didn’t know he was dyslexic until he was 58 when his son was diagnosed with it.
Addendum: Gov. Mary Fallin has just issued Richard Glossip a 37-day stay of execution so the drugs to be used in his execution can be reviewed. I hope that’s window dressing for “let’s make sure we’re not executing an innocent man.” If his sentence is commuted, I will post something special just for Gov. Fallin. A poem of praise for an open mind and heart.
If not, Nov. 6, (my birthday and his new execution day) is going to be a day of mourning the world over.
Thank you Poem Elf for this thoughtful post including the poem and info about Philip Schultz. Funny, I read a lot of poetry by lots of different poets and his name was familiar. I went to my box of recently acquired (from a fantastic used book sale in Phoenix) poetry books and found his Pulitzer, “Failure.” Not, plural by the way. I have yet to read it, but will now that you have posted this interesting poem of his. The NYT article was also interesting in light of what he was able to accomplish despite his inability to understand language.
Thanks, I made the correction. I just got “Failure” from the library myself, looking forward to reading it.
I also wanted to comment on the word “agreeable.” I do not like his choice of that word in this instance because to me it indicates that if the narrator had lived a “truthful life” it would have been an agreeable life. I would have much preferred him writing something such as “and wonder at the truthful life you were afraid to lead, and turn away.” Most of us live an “agreeable” life at least part of our lives. A life lived completely to our own personal truths would be much more than agreeable, don’t you think?