Truth will out

"Truth will out."

Perhaps. When all who might benefit
Are dead and unmourned and their sealed
Bronze caskets penetrated at last.

For only prisoners write letters now
And who past twelve a diary keeps?
Aren't news accounts in jelly molds poured,
While statistical stuff all honor reaps?

   (Will computer tapes of credit cards
   Reveal our paths from death to birth?
   Print out lost loves, failed faiths, hushed hopes,
   With cancelled checks to prove net worth?)

Our Rulers' records will history men
Use for politics, for war—
Though mostly typed with an eye for them
With graded cunning above E-4.

The unknown of now time's passage hides,
The 'non' drops from the 'sequitur';
From disputation to consensus glides
The satin slipper’d historical whore.

Perhaps "Truth will out" won't.
Perhaps such concepts are contrived
By men who must all completion find
In a full unfolding of life in time.

                       —Lorry Ibsen ( 1940-   )