To Know The Question Poem by Robert Harrison

What is life?

If in the race of life
I had faithfully run.
And having started
That race had won.
Never straying from
From within the lines
Guiding a runner on.
At the end of my life
What would have been
My life’s sum?

If only love I had shown
To all of mankind.
If only good thoughts
Were all that entwined.
What would life give
A forever pure mind.
No unrighteousness,
Motives of a nobler kind
And to my fate I were
Unquestionably resigned

If such a life I lived,
How would I have
Known love if I had
Never known sorrow.
How would I have
Known good if no
Evil I could borrow.
Facing oppositions
I must experience.
To do so, I must have
The right to questions.