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The Liberty Dreamer
Envision freedom as a circle spanning three hundred and sixty degrees
And sitting at the circle’s center you are at liberty to swivel and tilt at will
Mesmerized by the seemingly limitless opportunities that beckon
Within each degree a fountainhead suffused with vocation
And you are at liberty to choose among many choices
Without incarceration, custody or constraint
A path imbued and pregnant with destiny
And though you must endure sacrifice to excel
Born to love and felicity
The only obstacle before you
Is to leap without reservation along a path already foreordained with peace and prosperity
But
Such liberties remain the preserve of kings and queens, lords and noblemen
And few among us inherit such glory
And you are not among them
Your pitiful birthright barely spans a degree of opportunity
And you will always peer into the warm from the cold outside
A swaddling cast upon a landscape of turgid black-peppered earth
A pauper not a prince, an enslaved soil tiller not a king
A birthright so pitiful you barely command a grain of sand from deserts sweeping so vast
Nor can you imbibe a single drop of water from oceans wet and ebbing
Bound by societal chains, suppression, racism and misogyny
A destiny hijacked and shackled to invisible nemesis
And after endless toil you are overcome by exhaustion and lassitude
Your subaltern fate draws ever nearer
A sheaf waiting for the sickle
But
Sudden like a stowaway
Escaping from a labyrinth of barricaded opportunity
A solitary voice breaches the ramparts of darkness without supplication
A message so powerful and pure it radiates outwards across the universe
Into hearts that have long ceased to yearn
And woebegone souls that have long ceased to dream
And awaking from your poverty induced stupor
Freedom becomes your final act of rebellion from mental slavery
And with the liberty dreamer now awakened within you
You possess the key to a circle of opportunity suffused with vocation
By Peter J. Middlebrook
