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Writer's pictureMichael Barnes

Filter the Truth

Save your grace

For Sundays and seders

And seek your savior's grace,

So you can save your place in heaven's line,

If you believe in that sorta thing.

Saints say the same thing,

So I'll decline the ride

I won't be taken on one,

I'd rather go out and walk

See what the woods have to say--

The secrets they hold

They're embedded in the bark

In the soil, in the dark,

If you listen on the wind

You can hear it whisperin'

And you may hear it different than me

Who even knows if it's the same to begin?

So I interface with the forest

Face to face

So my source is

The first

And not known thru seconds and thirds,

Then the meaning isn't stepped on

Chewed up, spit out,

Regurgitated--you

might even heard i made it,

Like gold that gets old

and looks tarnished and faded,

If you want to find God

Don't ask the man

They made into a monument,

They'll want to all follow you

If you learn to filter the truth.

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4 Comments


Ray Mullineaux
Ray Mullineaux
Oct 25, 2021

Nature is difficult to come at without conception and scientific understanding is mediated

by observation through extensions of our senses and thorough marination in theory and hypothesis and mathematics. Laws are heuristics since the empirical is forever ongoing, til

in some unimaginable time.... it stops. A world of platonic objects? Hard to say what it is then:

unnoticed, unnoticing, without motion, heat, light, and perfectly arrayed by spatial gravity without

potential.for acceleration.


I took several medium length hikes with friends from Spring to late Summer. Exertion, breath, retaining balance and momemtum climbing suppress the inner dialogue in attending the terrain, the ground vegetation, the slipperiness of stone, the tactics of safely walking... a meditation on breath, the burn of you…


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Michael Barnes
Michael Barnes
Oct 25, 2021
Replying to

Uncle Ray! That was so beautifully written, nicely said. You bring up some interesting points about time-space, questions about does time end or does it cycle back on itself forever. Makes me think of the multiverse theory (my eponymous url) and parallel timelines. Also, our perspective is naturally finite because we are mortal, but nature offers a window into the infinite, and inspires meditation on the effects that time shows on plants and trees and terrain. I'm glad you're interested in sprucing up your poem and I will gladly help. You can email me your finalized/preferred version and I will update it on the website. Just make sure your formatting and spacing is to your liking so I can…

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Cathleen Barnes
Cathleen Barnes
Oct 25, 2021

You're a good UU -- finding your spirituality in nature -- and walking an independent path.

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Michael Barnes
Michael Barnes
Oct 25, 2021
Replying to

Roots hold me close and wings set me free, yazoo

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