The Agnostic’s Paradox: A Dialogue with Socrates

In a garden shaded, wise and deep,
Where silent thoughts like shadows creep,
A question echoed through the air,
What is truth, and who will care?
A stranger came with searching eyes,
A soul unmoored, lost in disguise,
And saw, in Socrates, a guide,
A sage who asked, but never lied.
 
“Tell me, great sage, what can you know?
Is there a truth that we can show?”
Socrates smiled, his eyes aglow,
“A question asked, yet more to go,
For truth is like the wind you feel,
Invisible, but it’s so real.
It moves us all, yet cannot stay,
It shifts its shape, and fades away.”
The stranger frowned, unsure, confused,
Is truth a wind, a life, bemused?
 
“Then tell me, Socrates, what’s wise?
How does one see through all the lies?”
Socrates paused, his gaze grew long,
“Wisdom’s not loud; it’s silent, strong.
It lives within the depths of doubt,
Not in the answers that we shout.
The wise man knows he cannot know,
And in that thought, the winds will blow.”
“But if you know nothing, what’s to gain?”
The stranger asked, caught in the strain.
 
Socrates chuckled, soft and sly,
“For wisdom’s birth begins with why.
The naive ask, with hearts so pure,
And in their questions, find the cure.
A fool will claim he holds the key,
But wisdom laughs in mystery.
The more you know, the less you find,
For answers bind the searching mind.”
 
“Then, is it true that we must stray,
From certainty, and live in gray?”
The stranger asked, his voice unsure,
Caught between the myth and the obscure.
Socrates, with voice serene,
Replied, “The gray is where we’re seen.
In certainty, we build our chains,
But in the unknown, the freedom reigns.
For you cannot catch the wind’s embrace,
By chasing shadows through time and space.”
 
Agnostic heart, lost in the haze,
Would ponder all his restless days.
He felt the pull of truth unknown,
Yet feared the winds that would be shown.
And so, he asked again, his eyes wide,
“What is the soul, what lies inside?”
Socrates replied, his voice a breeze,
“The soul’s a river, flowing with ease.
It carries thought from shore to shore,
Yet no one knows its hidden core.
The more you seek, the less you see,
But in the search, you’re truly free.”
 
The stranger sat, his mind alive,
A flood of questions, none to drive.
A smile broke through his troubled face,
For in the irony, he found his place.
No answers given, yet all was said,
A dance of doubt, where truths are led.
In naive questions, he would stand,
With Socrates' words like grains of sand.
 
So here they linger, question still,
Not answered fully, yet fulfilled.
For in the asking, they are whole,
The journey's path, the agnostic's soul.
A world unknown, an endless quest,
In every question, they find rest.
For wisdom lives in questions deep,
And in that space, we wake from sleep.