Free (Poem for the Human Spirit)

Free (Poem for the Human Spirit)                  January 16, 2006

So many people walking that city street.

I wonder if they have demons in their hearts.

Oh well. I guess it doesn't really matter, then.

They've got it made. They needn't care about me.

The birds fly in the sky, gracefully as can be,

Singing harmonious tunes that, well,

I can only assume their feathered peers can comprehend.

Regardless of their lack of reasoning skills

That humans seemingly do have,

They and the street dwellers below are free as can be.

Everything else surrounding me

Seems unbound by Newton's laws of gravity,

Yet, here I am, shackled to the ground.

I feel the yearning tugging and pulling,

But a greater power than my mind simply won't let me loose.

I suppose, then, that this is my hell on Earth,

My punishment for some unspeakable crime,

For, as Patrick Henry once was quoted,

"Give me liberty or give me death!"

I cry out to give me the latter if I cannot have the former.

And so it is, my friends, apparent partners in crime,

As I end the lamenting of my bondage.

I am left here to assume

That I shall be shackled forever and a day,

Each day growing a bit older and more gray.

But, I shall nev er give up in my plight

In the formation of my underground railroad,

The materialization of a source of my plight.

Still, I will continue to sing of the day of my emancipation,

The day in which fate will simply let me be.