Freedom

A stranger sat beside me at the airport in Singapore.

Some glow around me encouraged his approach.

What got lost midst semantic codes and language barriers

was gained in relief, a diversion from the wait.

He started a conversation that I observed, as if it was

between the great mother within all males and females,

or between the man-made god and the god-made man.

For a moment, we were the collective voice of the people.

*

He asked why wars are fought.

I said that most people probably do not know the reason.

Humanity struggles to fight for what they can understand

of dreams of freedom that they translate into their language of life.

*

He told me his story.

He was a former KGB who trained with Putin

and was on his way to Jakarta to gamble big money

in a land where gambling is illegal.

Why did he tell this story to a stranger?

As a piece of fiction to display his personal freedom?

Was he boasting that he was free to live life as he pleased?

*

I do not know if I helped him on his way, but after talking,

he kissed my hand and put it to his chest, three times.

For a moment, I questioned, if I had in my ignorance,

become one of the three versions of Judas.

Had I betrayed some confidence, as part of a divine plan?

Was I the soul, assigned to be sacrificed,

or pre-destined to eternal damnation because I looked for a silver lining?

I concluded it was just a strange occurrence, but still,

a part of me wonders if my words created the breath

that caused a butterfly to flap its wings

and influence fate, free will or destiny .

Each individual has a stake in the future.

Each isolated action holds infinite degrees of freedom

with the potential to influence what might happen next.

*

As the winds of change flow along the Moskva to Gorky Park,

birds fly across the sky and sing above flowing blue waters

sparkling on a sunset beach.

Children across the world learn speechless songs of freedom

from being in right relation to life.

Now, many must leave all that is familiar

and the sun that rises on a place called home,

full of life and familiarity that eases hearts.

*

A young mind learns to keep options open

in an uncertain, unsustainable world.

The child learns to understand freedom from dreams

of the known past and the unknown future.

Tomorrow's leaders form memories with distorted facts

that can create fears and challenges that destroy innocence.

Children live as sleep walkers, hypnotized.

Sp ell-bound by starry eyed dreams of freedom

they cannot be awakened. They shuffle

and they stumble along the righteous path

following another’s footsteps on an odyssey

down a new road to some unknown place.

They are the hope of change that might moderate all-or-none polarities

and stop the current nightmarish diorama in the world.

*

Moral values develop according to what truth reality imposes.

Truth often holds a tyrannical past,

where promises of freedom and possible redemption

becomes libel and heresy punishable by law.

When facts are selectively assembled, to provide an excuse

called truth, that does not consider other perspectives,

it degenerates the power of Freedom.

*

As illusions of truth dissolve

the free spirit creates a fantasy of a dream of freedom.

Each individual strives to be whole and part of a whole.

By taking pieces of truth that are available,

even when all the pieces are not there,

they weave what is called truth into life’s illusions of freedom.

*

Dreams of Freedom can become the poisoned cloak of Nessus

naively offered to Hercules in hopes that it could sustain love

but instead causes a burning unbearable pain

of fire, that is redeemed only by the fire of a funeral pyre.

Dreams of Freedom can create the cloak of protection

that provides an inspiring power and unknown life force

that offers strength to maintain honour, integrity and duty

and to do what is needed to preserve ideals.

*

Truth is hidden in machine languages that outstrip understanding.

Information is collected and passes through global communication

in a global community facing global exponential population growth.

Facts are used, abused and distorted to direct choices.

The Tower of Babel broadcasts events, as if life is a racket game.

Ideals are bounced and sometimes, in a game of weighted odds

within a wave, they pop like bubble wrap and in a moment

the cushion of protection is removed from the future.

*

Energy and matter transform one into the other.

What is fake can become what is said to be true.

What is true can be destroyed and said to have been imagined.

Money is a virtual construct in a virtual world

pushed by the momentum of financial worlds.

Economic parasites have clever ways to exploit or oppress

and steer desires that feed emotions.

*

Humans have the intelligence to revise

which freedoms to defend or sacrifice in hopes that

a. they can control oppression caused by lack of all kinds:

the ozone layer, fertility, food, water, shelter and energy;

and other opposing forces and

b. they can find stability when threatened by wars, earthquakes,

meteorites, global climate change, new diseases and other pressures.

*

Mankind has a short memory.

It is up to those who have experienced freedom,

to protect the road of freedom that has been so bravely defended.

They must cherish freedom, for like hardships, joy, health and youth,

freedom is seen and appreciated most clearly, when it is gone.

.