Truth
By: Lois Roberts
About The Poem
I wrote the first line of this poem many years
ago and came back to it recently. I have lived in
Walthamstow for many years and love the sense
of community and diversity which exists in the
borough. The last year has certainly shown me
that ‘fellowship is life’ and what brings us
together is so much greater than what divides
us. This poem for me is about the plurality of
identity and in many ways how we craft that
identity by the experiences we seek out, the
choices we make and the stories we share.
The Poem
Truth is the fiction
we write for ourselves.
Memories like dreams
are unfaithful.
Strained, sifted, selected,
edited with each recall.
We are what we choose to remember.
we are what we choose to forget.
We are more than an origin,
a title or trajectory.
More than a language
to dress our thoughts.
We are plural,
the shores and cities
which harbour our hopes,
the land which breaks our fall.
We are the silence which
sleeps between us,
or the laughter which
clears the way.
We are the tracks,
the paths we stumble onto
the chances forged or dashed.
The music or the passion,
the refuge found in books.
The fellowship, the kinship,
the look we understood.
We are the family that we fight for,
the loyalty earned or lost.
We are the food which calls
our history,
all the colours of our past.
We are the promises kept and broken
or the secrets that we bear.
We are a story formed in telling.
We are the stories that we share.
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