The Many, the Pure, and the Whole

What do we record as real?
Why bother to make the claim?
People are still arguing

Over old Herodotus,
Whether Jesus did exist,
Whether the world has a lip.

You orient each other
By your triangulations
As you survey each other,

And the mountains and the stars,
The shorelines that you measure,
You measure with reference

Solely to your social selves
And the measures of such truths
Are names you record, are us,

The sentences and phrases,
The equations and the sums.
You compare with each other.

Does this look right? Does this look
Like the right way to record
What’s really real of what’s right?

All include many, the pure
In desiring to be pure,
But no symbol can be whole.