Notes About The Poem
A person's deepest worth relies not on the fleeting approval of the world, but on an unshakeable, internal foundation discovered only when we dare to look at ourselves in the quiet darkness.
In the Absence of Eyes
The noise of the world is a shimmering veil,
A theatre built of applause and applause,
Where we measure our worth by the wind in the sail,
And bend all our truths to societal laws.
We paint our own faces to mirror the crowd,
We carefully curate the words that we speak,
Losing our voice where the chanting is loud,
To trade who we are for the praise that we seek.
But silence arrives like a hammer and stone,
To strip all the scaffolding down to the floor,
And leave us standing entirely alone,
With no audience waiting outside of the door.
It shuts out the mirrors, the echoes, the cheer,
The subtle performance we put on each day,
And forces the soul to look closely and hear
The unvarnished truth that we whispered away.
For true quietude is no stillness of air,
Nor is it a sanctuary built for retreat;
It is a severe and uncomfortable square
Where motive and action are forced to compete.
Without an observer to tell us our place,
Or tell us which virtue is worthy or right,
We measure our depth in the shadowless space
And learn who we are in the absence of light.
It tests every value we claimed to possess,
To see if they hold when no witness is near,
Or if they were worn as a fancy dress,
To hide our small doubts and our hunger for fear.
In the deep, empty quiet, integrity grows—
Not out of the honor that others bestow,
But out of the quiet decision that knows
The truth of the foundation built down below.
When the world turns its back and the stage lights go dim,
And no one remains to approve or to judge,
The character forged in that solitude grim
Is an unshakeable pillar that never will budge.
For the soul that has met itself fully in peace,
And weathered the void where validation must die,
Gains a private, deep truth that will never decrease,
Anchored far deeper than the world’s fleeting eye.
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