Authenticity

Who cares if a thing is real or not?
Was that the dinner bell asks the field hand?
Why, any bell will bring him in.
Is this really deer meat?
No starving one will ponder long.
Is that the Wells Fargo Wagon down the street?
Who cares if it’s something special for me?

We the people could elect a president
Through a computer in our home
But for the need of voter identity.
When a boat comes over the horizon
you strain to make sure it is your ship.
Any marriage would be in disarray
on the discovery of one fake diamond.

When it comes to personal authenticity
Who cares more, person or audience?
People soon got over learning
Jesse Jackson had a love child.
But how long will it take him to?
The world may call me a hypocrite
but the label hurts most if I assign it.
I prefer to plead my case in a court of law
To doing it in my heart of hearts.

Nothing injures a society more than reduction
in the value of authenticity.
Each person declares allegiance to shared principles
swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth,
or announcing before witnesses
he will stay with this woman until death,
or taking an oath of office.
He has volunteered for a probation.
Through ordained institutions,
societies deal with violations.
The justice wheel is set in motion
and if one is not formally convicted
he may be forever branded.

What transpires in a heart
is determined by what is believed
to be the importance of authenticity.
She will have that hang dog look,
if she accepts that private hypocrisy
is as bad as public ridicule.

If she does not hold that opinion
she will be fine while her sins are hidden.
The society loses its first line of defense
against individual corruption,
when people no longer blush
over inauthenticity.

Despite authenticity’s role
as private parole officer,
there is something more fundamental.
In the end, roughly the same tombstones mark our graves.
People cry at the funeral of crooks, too.
The size of one’s peccadilloes
gets rounded off to the nearest lower number.
Mothers pray fervently for wayward daughters.
Maybe we see authenticity too narrowly
as a relative of guilt.
We can do better.

We should not fear losing authenticity
For we never had it.

The value of authenticity is not in peace of mind
But in how it determines
the way we think, talk, and walk.
Authentic presence is the horse we ride in on.
It is not bravado, machismo, or assiduity.
It is quieter than these.
The authentic person does not live in fear of private rules
but rather lives in cooperation with her own soul.

Bob Dylan said roughly, it takes a good man to live outside the law.
The poet is not quirky because she thinks it’s cute.
She is heeding the universe inside her.
There is only one spirit,
albeit artificially divided into many souls
during the days of our lives.
Harmony is when we resonate
with the voice of the undivided spirit in us.

Any other attitude toward living
is too provincial, too narrow.
When the world sees authenticity
it calls it magnanimity.
Oh, it may call it other less dignified names too
such as geekish, dreamy, overly idealistic,
not of this earth, you name it.
But I will trade all the honors in the world
for communion with the one, ageless spirit.
I know this eternal presence
when it enters my heart,
and it does from time to time,
for in its breast is the essential nature of all

All who came before and those yet to be.

When an authentic friend comes in the room,
my lips form one question.
Anyone for a spot of tea?