Honesty is a virtue we invoke often but seldom practice rigorously, and rarely without cost. It is the antidote to the corruptions that surround us—the small deceptions we tell ourselves, the larger ones we tell each other, the systems built upon deliberate falsehood. To speak truth, to live it, requires a kind of courage that goes unsung.
An ode traditionally praises something worthy of celebration: a hero, a beloved, a noble ideal. What follows is an ode to honesty itself—not as an easy virtue, but as a crystalline force, something unyielding and pure. It is an invocation of clarity in a world of shadow, a hymn to the courage required to stand in one's own truth without ornament or excuse.
O Honesty, crystalline virtue, clear as mountain spring,
You taste upon the tongue like salt, like truth's own crystalline ring—
A flavor sharp and bright that burns away the coated lie,
That cleanses palate, purifies, and lifts the heavy sky.
Your touch is smooth as river stone, worn round by time's relent,
Yet firm beneath the fingertips, unmoved and permanent.
You wear no silk, no velvet soft to tempt the seeking hand,
But offer up your naked warmth, the surest thing that's grand.
The air around you sings with light, a hum that fills the chest,
A resonance that settles deep and gives the weary rest.
Your voice rings clear as bells of bronze across the morning moor,
Each syllable a hammer-stroke that opens up the door.
I see you in the steady gaze, the eye that will not break,
The brow unfurrowed, smooth with peace, for there's no shame to fake.
Your shadow falls in perfect lines, no twisted dark distortion,
No muddied edges creeping in, no false or bent proportion.
O scent of honesty! Like rain on sun-warmed stone,
Like cedar wood and open earth, like walking paths alone.
You carry not the cloying musk of words meant to deceive,
But offer up the clean, sharp smell of what we can believe.
So here I sing, with voice full-throated, praise for your refrain—
You are the sweetest nectar, you, the cooling, gentle rain.
O Honesty, sustain us still through every shadowed night,
Your crystalline and ringing truth, our steadfast, blazing light.
Notes: In performing this poem, one should attempt to embody the weight of what is being praised: not merely truthfulness, but the whole architecture of integrity that holds a person upright. The sensory language that moves through these lines attempts to make the abstract tangible—to let honesty be tasted, touched, heard, and seen as something real and redemptive. When given, this ode is spoken not in desperation, but in reverence.
