I live and I write on the surface of things. My heart yearns to swim in the depths of life’s mysteries but that does not appear to be my calling. I know about these mysteries but I know about them with detachment; or, to borrow a line from Hamlet, I “stand in the rear of my affection, out of the shot and danger of desire.” I am not diminishing myself. I am what I am. Or, as Popeye put it, “I yam what I yam!”

But as I meet dear friends in the blog-o-sphere, I deeply admire those of you who have such creative power and can write with such elegance and poetic brilliance. You are at home in the “sounding foam of primal things”, you “dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible”, and you know “the passionate seizure of beauty.” These lines are borrowed from a Carl Sandburg poem which I now share:

WHO AM I?

My head knocks against the stars.

My feet are on the hilltops.

My finger tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.

Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.

I have been to hell and back many times.

I know all about heaven, for I’ve talked to God.

I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.

I know the passionate seizure of beauty

And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading, “Keep off.”

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.