Tapestry

You say I’m a dreamer,
That I live in books and a world of my own,
That I never see the real world
Or the people who live there.

You say I’m a romantic,
That I’m always thinking of love and beauty,
That I don’t understand life
And its complexities.

You say I’m an idealist,
That I’m drifting naively along as if everything will work out
As long as I believe it will;
That I’m unrealistic.

You think I will not last—
In this cold, hard world in which you live,
There is no room for such as me.
You think I will be trampled beneath the feet of life.

Think again! 
I see the world around me as clearly as you—
Perhaps more so, because I know how it changes.

I see Time flowing around me as it always has,
Civilizations rising and falling like the tides of the ocean,
People living their lives conscious of the approach of death,
Yet unconscious of its arrival.
They are nothing in the continual flow of Time;
Each life is but another stitch in the tapestry.
What have they to live for but love and beauty?
What have they to rely on except belief?
Nothing is assured them and nothing can they control.

If I am unrealistic in your eyes, it is because your sight is muted
By the gauze of human self-interest.
In the scheme of Time, the ambitions of each merely echo those of others.
It is not for the later generations to improve on the earlier,
Only to live different lives with the same desires.

If I don’t understand the complexities of life,
It is because I see them layered over each other until they become simple,
Melding together to form life, its beauty and simplicity.
What is seen as confusion and chaos becomes patterns of humanity
When viewed with the rest of history.

If I live in my books,
It is because they tell the story of life.
I read the tales the ancients told, and learn from them.
I see the patterns in the tapestry as it is woven,
And I know why each color is used.
This life of ours is woven slowly,
And we are not in it only for ourselves.
Each thread is not woven only with threads of the same color—
Each life touches and is touched in turn.

You say I do not know the world in which I live:
That I see less than the reality of life.
I say it is you who does not see clearly.

Our lives in this world are not skeins of thread,
Separate and touching only themselves.
Our lives are woven together with those of everyone who has ever lived.

There is more to life than our separate ambitions:
We want the same things people have always desired.
There is more to life than each one of us:
If no one sees, how can it be remembered?
There is more to life than our single threads:
We weave a tapestry with those we do not know.
We tell the truth of life in patterns we cannot always see.