Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

To come to a place of not knowing,
a place of faith and flowing,
a wild adventure and not a growing,
an education in arriving and not going.

I don’t know the ethics of utility,
Experiencing real futility;
I don’t know the Kantian category,
Experiencing infinite trajectory.

I don’t know who she will bring home,
I don’t know which hair to comb;
I walk and wait, with humble gait,
Appreciating an arbitrary trait.

I don’t know how my words do land,
Scattered like grains of sand.
I walk in Science, I walk in words,
Without the certainty of the herd.

A spirit can rest in ambiguity,
Without the fear of incongruity.
“I don’t know, but I do care.”
For what is fair is in the care.

I may have a story that is true,
A story I most certainly will undo,
It may be one that keeps me immune,
But it certainly won’t let me commune.

This is who I am; this is my nation.
This is the morning I put my face on.
I know my path, the path to work.
But today is a detour; there’s men at work.

And so I drive a different route,
And so my certainty be-comes moot.
Why are we so concerned with facts
When upon this faithfulness I do act?