Theme For English B Poem by Alan Chen

Theme for English B
By Alan Chen

The instructor said
Go home and write
a page tonight
And let that page come out of you
Then it will be true
True.
Truth.
Can one be true,
If truth is nothing but perception?
Perception and beliefs,
That come from me.
I come from the modest village of Steveston.
A home that holds both my heart and my soul in a comforting grasp.
And with my roots in that of Steveston,
They grow and blossom into the branches and flowers of which begin my perceptions.

I perceive,
I believe,
I think,
Then I brink,
And my thoughts dribble over the edge of this cup that is my mind,
And puddle onto this never-ending recession that is my page.
They puddle, and puddle,
They splash, then flow,
Into a river
- not of thoughts –
But of perceptions and beliefs.
The river swells and grows,
Into waves, wind-blown.
Until nothing fills my page but
The crashing of perceptions upon shore.
And as swift as it came,
My ocean of conceptions begins to recede.
It ebbs into a river,
Then dries into a puddle,
Then evaporates completely,
And when it readies itself,
It will rain
Back into my cup.

As I wait,
And let rain fall,
A seed is placed.
A seed of thought, perhaps?
Or maybe a seed of perception?
Unbeknownst to the world,
It begins to sprout.
It anchors its roots,
And opens to reveal –
Me.
Naïve to my blank surroundings,
I begin to discover.
My soul begins to perceive,
And my heart begins to believe.
I am what I am.
I am the manifestation
Of which harbours
The feelings that I share,
The emotions that I embrace,
The personality that I desire,
And the unknown that I face.
I am what I am,
And that is the only truth
That I can perceive.

Perhaps you,
Instructor,
Being of the teaching profession,
Can see more than what I have perceived.
You embody much more than I,
Being of greater experience,
And a matured generation.
If this belief is correct,
Then as I learn from you,
Your eyes will become mine,
And my perceptions will begin to change.
Just as when you read this page,
No,
Not 'this page',
But my 'rhetoric composition of my perceptions of truth',
You carefully constructed perceptions and beliefs will also waver and fade,
As you,
The instructor,
Learn from me.

This
is my page,
for English B.