It Is What It Is

“It is what it is”, that’s now the darling phrase
Of chattering classes, or perhaps not so
Chattering, as the dying words
Convey a loss for words.
Or – argue here –
Perhaps these words describe
Exactly all the Indescribable,
Like God, who Is, just Is.
(Though He’s evolving, surely, and if He’s not,
We are all whirling in a sealed place
And going nowhere).
It is what it is –
What’s “it”, what’s “is”, what’s “what”
I want to know.
What’s said twice must be true
So I’ve been told
By Bible scholars, yet I ask
You, what’s a poem –
What’s this poem?
Is it ‘just’? Not even this
Is just a poem, not the words
Where even “It” is metaphor,
Not even choice of words and not
The huge desire
To write them down, to let you read them,
Reader.

LRH
1.8.06
In Persian: “Fihi ma fihi”
Vanity Fair, Dec. 2005
'Five Little Words' by Jim Windolf