We decry anonymity, want to be known,
but now and again the very bane
leading to loneliness, isolation, alienation
sloughs its foliage, transforms, and becomes welcome.
We’ve lived anonymity in the negative,
the attempts to crawl into the woodwork,
to disappear, to evaporate. We know the untenable

pressure to prove our worth. But then, sometimes,
the word, the feeling shifts on its axis
and anonymity becomes a welcome escape
from  social expectations, from false patterns,
from insincere life. And the fact we can’t recall
surnames of our closest friends gives proof
of the inherent worthiness of insecure people,
of the merit of being you without pegs to classify
as educated, convicted, under-employed,
leadership material, wealthy, homeless…
the usual pegs. And we stand, admiring wisdom
spoken with broken grammar, innate humanity

from graduates of elite universities, high school dropouts

conversing with nuclear physicists.
We come together, anonymous, and find it’s true…
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation
of all these Traditions, ever reminding us
to place principles before personalities.