Ways of Knowing

Things may be much larger

or much smaller

than we assume —

Maybe it’s a galaxy,

maybe a quark,

maybe the shake of a squirrel’s tail

among the boughs

Some instruments of knowing

are less foolproof

than we have been led to believe,

and indeed

we have been fooled for generations —

We have been duped

into throwing out

all ways of knowing,

all ways of measuring,

all ways of valuing

except the dollar

(and that, we’re told,

is out of our control)

And yet

We are not fools,

We do have ways of knowing 

of our own

And we can use them

to understand

each one’s true value

and why we’re here

and what we now can do

to save the world.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 18, 2014