*****

Recorded Reading (2:51): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2isfohzegtx5knth66xl3/Stifling-Debate.mp3?rlkey=1wzstjg0y0xulcynxsp3tkg5a&dl=0

*****

Stifling Debate

If you wish with others
In conflict to relate
By all means, go right ahead
And start up a debate

Focus on defeating
Your opponent, who
Likewise will be focusing
On defeating you

“I know the truth and you do not,”
One to the other quoth
“But one of us may be correct
It cannot be both”

While waiting for a pause
In others’ speech, impatiently,
Prepare your instant riposte
Of negativity

After which, which one of you
Will go home in defeat? —
Well, over here we folk have got
A conversation sweet

All full delightful humor
And affirmation of
If one did not know better
One might even call it love

We reach the whole truth, never by
Subtraction, as you do,
Of any part creation of,
But by adding to:

This truth plus that truth equals all
This truth less that one never can
It thus hath been since ever our
Universe began

Here we find present reasons
As present reasons always be
With our communal partner
Firstly to agree

For from some new perspective
Which never has occurred to you
So long as facts are accurate
Their insight must be true

And if the facts themselves
Are brought some question under
Rather than accusation
We with mutual wonder

Continue work together
To ascertain the truth
Without base denigration
The other of, forsooth!

Without the imputation
They must imperfect be
If they can so perceive the world
Inaccurately

Together we will access
The necessary text
Without making this pleasure
Any sort of a pretext

To illegitimize
Perspectives offered — know we must
Preserve appreciation
For theoretics shared in trust

And when the facts established are
Mutually glad to know
In unbroken companionship
Onward happy go

To find the center, fulcrum,
Point of balance, where
All points of view with equal
Legitimacy compare

In mutual good feeling
None down into defeat
When two proactively
Affirmative minds set to meet

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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