What Is Goin’ On?

A friend of mine who is into poetry sent me a poem that did not seem to be a poem, at least not in the sense of iambic pentameter, which is the way I was taught. Anyway, I decided to post it even though it is a little out of my comfort zone. Maybe someone will straighten me out on poetry, ’cause I sure didn’t get it in high school. (Please ignore the punctuation, I was not sure how to do it.)

I am certain of this:
that I am not certain of this.
Certainty is not the same as knowing.

But I long to be certain of the things
that cannot be known, both the deep
and shallow things of life.

Many are certain but they do not know.
They listen to the part that suits their inner hearing
and claim they are certain they have heard.

Hearing is such a difficult thing, of that
I am certain, and even when I hear without doubt
my mind creates uncertainty against all my wishes.

Being uncertain is not a way of life,
But a condition of existing. It tires me
to think about certainty in a world that is not.

And the thing of which I am most certain
Is that I am not troubled by uncertainty
Until I encounter someone who is–certain that is.

It is rather like seeing the largest diamond,
Or a magic trick, or a couple in love.
To see and yet know it is beyond your reach.

The greatest uncertainty is to know you are right
And yet the powers that govern, claim to
know they are right about things that were not certain when they were like me.

And if I doubt the certainty they claim to know,
I must form an argument to repel their certainty,
As if uncertainty did not exist without proof

And all this time it was me who thought
That it was certainty that required the proof of the pudding.
For uncertainty survives the most certain of things.