To Be And So On Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

To Be or…


The swan on the lake doesn’t know it is a swan,
they say. How do they know? A swan may look
at us and say to another swan “Darling humans
don’t who they are.” Quite right my lovely, they
are daft that way” (swans have lot in common
with actors, the lake is their stage and we are
their adoring audience) I know that because Tom,
the only actor I have met in the flesh, called me
darling, well, not only me but everyone he spoke
to. Tom died no one calls me darling anymore.
We only think we know ourselves, if we really did
it would be too scary to know that inside us lurks
a monster.