What is Truth?
After “Wheatfield with Crows,” by Vincent Van Gogh

Truth is a fine-spun rainbow obscured by shadows. Truth is a gossamer veil between you and another. Truth is a light so blinding that once exposed to it your vision can never recover. Truth is something to tell slant, whispering it softly into the bells of waist-high foxgloves on a misty Scottish morning. Truth is what you would share if you were able. Sometimes truth is masculine and sometimes, feminine. Truth is justice magnified. Truth might possibly set you free from the scalding prisons of gossip if it was broadcast like sweet corn kernels in a crow-free field. Truth is impermeable, immutable and a lie. Truth can be hard as a diamond or soft as new fallen snow. Truth is what you rest your head upon at the end of a long, busy day; a silken pillow scented with moss and roses. Truth used to sustain angels, but now it is the property of those with forked tongues. Truth is what your mother whispered to you in the long months before you were born and what your father left in the right-hand pocket of his tweed overcoat for you to find in the silent dawn. Truth is love, beauty and Oz.

—Keyan Kaplan

Keyan Kaplan is a retired educator who lived in Brooklyn for 35 years. Now she lives near the Long Island Sound. She has earned a puzzling collection of diplomas from various NYC and NYS colleges and universities. In addition to teaching and tutoring, Keyan has been a licensed massage therapist, a nanny, a museum guide and a chambermaid. She has sold books, toys, children’s clothing, contemporary crafts and antiques. Her poems have appeared in Art in Science (Dartmouth College) and The Peterborough Poetry Project.