Unknowability

What if one secretly filmed
A person’s every movement —
Day and night
For a week, a month, or even a year —
Every deed and interaction
Every word spoken or written
Every step taken, every outward gesture

With all that information
What could we know of that person
Would we then know everything
There is to know —
His work, relationships, preferences
Habits, reactions, expressions

What would still remain unknown —
Known only to him

His interior life —
The dreams of night
The thoughts that move through him all day —
Sensations, memories, reflections
His sense of self
What it is like to be him
How he knows that he exists

And what if —
There were an omniscience —
That could observe, could know
Even his innermost life
Every instant of his being —
Even in sleep, in dreaming, in idle moments
Of thinking, wondering, reflecting

Would that omniscience
Not be —
Exactly
What that person is

Does not such omniscience
Already exist —
Without ever being filmed, observed, heard, or measured
In that person’s outward behaviour

And yet —
All biographies, encyclopaedias, stories
Models, idols, movies, and pictures
Images, judgements, roles
Statues and statuses
Assigned to a person —
All our beliefs and ideas and thoughts
About a person —

Can never
Truly
Know what —
Exactly what —
That person is