Jane Yolen
“. . .what keeps us from hearing a truth that it must come
to us camouflaged?” Christopher B. Nelson, President St John’s College
Socrates takes his camouflage coat
out of the virtual closet, green and black
like a summer’s forest.
He puts on matching pants, hat
face mask, as if chlorophyll
is his natural element.
Out he goes to deliver what truths
the public needs, disguised
like a hunter after deer.
He drops the truths onto doorstoops,
mailboxes; love letters shoved
between window and sill.
Ever since then, the noble lie
has needed its camouflaged deliverer,
who never questions whether
We the People have the rigor
or the knowledge to see it
unmasked, undisguised, real.
***
Jane Yolen’s 380th published book is about to come out. She sends out poems to journals on a regular basis and has quite a few in sf/fantasy magazines as well. She is a Grand Master of SFPA (Science Fiction/Fantasy Poets of America), as well as a Grandmaster of SFWA and World Fantasy Assn. She has won the Nebula two times, Mythopoeic Award three times, and been nominated (but never won) for the Hugo several times. Six colleges & universities have given her honorary doctorates for her body of work.