The Paradox of Conviction & Doubt

 The Paradox of Conviction & Doubt                                

The paradox,

of conviction and doubt,

confidence and uncertainty;

Identical twins,

symbiotic, quixotic;

Great confidence must be

derived from great doubt;

Great doubt, a partner

of undeterred confidence;

There can be no sense

of great confidence

without the concurrent

existence of great doubt;

It’s the courage

to trust your confident soul,

rely on the confident side, and

press forward,

in spite of the great doubt,

that makes a man a leader,

a visionary,

accomplished.

Mark Decker

Mark Decker is a retired businessman, who concurrently - and quietly - wrote poetry beginning in 1968 and continuing to the present.  After retiring, in 2016, he decided to organize his life’s work of poetry in order to preserve it for his children and grandchildren.  As a result, he started self-publishing his poetry in 2016 and has self-published several books.  He concurrently started sharing some of his poetry with his family and friends. Because of the very positive reaction he received about his poetry from family and friends, and through a writer’s group he belongs to in Virginia, he decided that he would try to find a traditional publisher, and poetry journals, for his work, share it with a broader audience going forward. It is in that spirit that he has begun submitting his work to poetry journals such as Ariel Chart.