Free...?

How so ... when conception itself

deposits me to be, in cell of flesh?

No prior consultation,

nor explanation,

no choice offered of language,

race, or classification.

*

Nine months the sentence, entombed thus...

before the prison door opens,

and wrapped in bewildering streams of pain,

slowly I'm pushed, propelled,

expelled naked and helpless,

unchosen parents me to claim.

*

Another sentence now begins,

helpless still,

I'm bound to those who care for me.

Without them I am dead.

The very air I breath,

threatening, bacteria laden,

and food and water too...

All that sustains me is suspect, out to contaminate,

dominate, or kill.

*

Still unasked, my form controlled

by silent invisible inner means,

growing as the blueprint set,

binds me to follow customs;

an imprisoning net,

strong as any prison cell.

I'm free ... as long as I fit in,

subject my spirit to the common will.

*

Thus do some sad dispirited souls,

life ending, sum up their dreary enterprise.

Failed to discern they, that

freedom only truly prevails

where common restraint permits

each soul its freedom to exist.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1997