On Proof

Dominique Townsend

The first problem is knowing.

Where do we know,

when do we, how do we know?

It’s like Goodman’s question—

When is art?

Then, there’s the problem of the truth.

Conventionally, I’m seated on a stool.

Ultimately, the stool and I are empty,

unnamable, composed, subjectively

and objectively, of constituent parts

and pieces, in the process of un-binding

even as I hold them to my heart.

But look—

apple trees come

from apple seeds.

And apple seeds

come from apple trees.

When an apple gets heavy,

gravity ensures that it falls.

When I was smaller,

I thought I knew my grandmother,

who wanted me to walk

up and down her back.

And then when she had

breathed out all her sighs,

to lie in bed with her,

under an electric blanket,

watching “Welcome Back Kotter”

while she drank warm water

with lemon and maybe smoked a joint.

What if I had to prove

I was safe there beside her?

The softness of the light

in the opening credits,

near the F train leaving

Manhattan for Brooklyn,

clattering wheels on tracks,

was a comfort to me.

I felt cozy, but she

proved unreliable.

In the end

what is known to be true

is no simple formulation.

The horse’s breath on my neck,

my earlobe, slightly bleeding,

a fake silk scarf with a famous

motif, my name means Sunday.

But can I prove it?

The main problem with proving

is that I don’t know how

anything works and I might

lack interest, or maybe

I’m too tired now to try.

Relatively, causes have effects.

Ultimately, names are empty of meaning.

The relative and the ultimate are not at odds.

But I am often at odds with you.

I sometimes prove truths

by pointing at other things,

in context, and sometimes

the factors align so, luckily,

other people are convinced.

The fruits, seeds & roots

examples tell us about

the sequence of things…

And orangutans apply

medicinal plants to heal

wounds to their eyes.

This is proven by a photo.

Words can be used

to prove things too.

Dominique Townsend is Associate Professor of Tibetan Buddhism at Columbia University and was previously Associate Professor at Bard College. She is the author of a book of poems, The Weather & Our Tempers (BAP 2013), a book about Buddhism for children called Shantideva (Wisdom Publications, 2014), and the scholarly books A Buddhist Sensibility (Columbia University Press, 2021), Longing to Awaken (University of Virginia Press, 2024), and All This is Dreamlike (forthcoming from Columbia University Press).