WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

As a child you instinctively know
that there are things you don't know;
you also know that you know of things
that the adults think you don't know.

Growing up is a process of knowing;
of knowing that you don't know;
acknowledging that others might know,
though they don't know that you don't know!

Wisdom comes when you can forget what you know,
when you know that parents, friends, lovers, well-wishers,
even your enemies, your best teachers, don't know;
for what is worth knowing is what you don't know.

Some people are born plain lucky;
they sail through life without knowing
that they don't know, and not knowing
that they don't know what is worth knowing
protects them from a lifetime of unknowing.

For most of us there is a price to be paid for
most of us get damaged, more or less, in the process
and end up knowing what is not worth knowing.
 

THE ANNUNCIATION

The book she held half-open, half-closed,
clasped between her startled fingers,
her thumb, a pagemark; the others curled
gently over the covers, slightly ajar.
seized in a moment of contemplation, the spirit
of quiet ravishment had not quite effaced her.

The rich maroon and purple-blue sleeves of her dress,
embroidered with golden borders, caressed the letters
of the illuminated script as the shadow of Gabriel
intercepted the direction of her thoughts.

The painting was a silent church
before the service begins. A time for waiting.
Did mary have a premonition of portentous tidings;
did she fully comprehend the divine dispensation?

What were her thoughts when that voice was heard,
her trance shattered with the dove's laser beams?
What was the book she clasped in her hands,
her memoirs or a book of prayers?

What was Mary doing, dressed like a queen,
as if waiting for a rendezvous with a secret lover?
Did she feel the stirrings in her womb,
great white wings flapping?