Camouflage

Why do poets use pictures to hide the truth? Why hide a message with words? Why cloak reality with verbiage When you can say it how it is? It’s because The better the hider, the more avid the seeker. Consider the boy who watches the butterfly In his Sunday best, escaping for a moment, Who squats among the oaken roots and Magnifies discovery. In rhythm the wings on the tree embrace and relinquish Meet and retreat And with each touch a face stares Eyes caught Watching the boy watching the insect hide in view. The tree stares through eyes on the wings of a butterfly. Camouflage, says the book to the boy. He sees the word and it is his. He says it until is nestles comfortably against his tongue, Writes it until it lingers on the fingers and Thinks it until the thought itself is unshakeable, undeniable, imperturbable truth. It the butterfly had been shy And camouflage was found only in a textbook Perceived in the nanoseconds it takes the eyes To see and the mind comprehend black symbols on white page, The word would be no less a word But it would not be his word, Not his solid, unquestionable truth. It is perceived, but not felt. That is the purpose of poetry. To put out of touch reality Let the reader piece the puzzle And discover, in their own time, Their own truth.