Freedom stood upon the mountain top, to view the rising sun,
That day he felt happy walking tall and straight.
The sun brought warmth to the travails of His fight,
A fight He’d surely ne’er for granted take.
Freedom looked down toward the villagers.
Within their village many roamed carefree.
But unlike Freedom, they were unaware
What they could think and feel, they could not see.
Yet Correctness could be seen by villagers that day
Spreading the word that Freedom was a danger.
“We must reign in our freedoms,” Correctness was heard to say,
“And be careful ne’er to share with perfect strangers.”
“Oh, my! Correctness is a foolish man. He’ll cause my village certain strife,”
Said Freedom as he strolled down the mountain top.
“We must maintain our right to congregate, to speak our minds,
Or otherwise our freedoms we’ll allot.”
As Correctness walked and talked that day a grey cloud above him stayed
Wherever he went the cloud would surely follow.
“It’s a sure sign of danger looming, of our freedoms taken back,”
Said Freedom, starting to flounder, lurch and wallow.
“You have no right to talk the truth, to speak ill of others,
You have no right to say what you truly think.
You cannot harm feelings of those you consider less than brothers
Or our village’s morality will sink.”
Freedom was losing patience with Correctness,
As the cloud over the latter moved away
Villagers nodded “yes, Correctness, yes, I do believe
One should not speak ill, one surely shouldn’t stray.”
But Freedom thought this madness, foolishness and folly,
“We’ll all be ruined if you follow through.
Our liberal village will put asunder, and then we’ll all be sorry
A Silent Order we’ll become, our free land lost to me and you.”
Freedom or Correctness, who will win the day?
It all depends who you listen to.
The first one on the podium will be the one to spread the word,
They’ll be the first one and they’ll be the last one heard.
Let the villagers hope it’s Freedom, for they ought to cherish these,
So many villages have none of their own.
The right to speak their mind, a right through all their live long years
Is a right to be encouraged, to be sown.
from Prism – an anthology – a collection of poetry, published November 2016
sensualism 