3736. ONLY A FREEDOM COLLIDES

ONLY A FREEDOM COLLIDES

Now marksman, now preacher, look

up from your tools : only a freedom

collides with intention, disrupting the

millions of gallant fools. It is we ourselves

who are sitting in this harbor, don't you know,

not our lone reflections. The wind comes up

from the water, moves things about; all the

paper-cups and leaflets blown about.

Only a freedom collides.

-

The men who are in the window, the

cat who sits on the stoop, the twisting

fact of light (which can never twist in

truth), each of these things stands apart

and  -  real enough  -  stands apparent

and as truth. I can only watch to observe,

and only a freedom collides.

-

The long, dead wash of old times, I say,

yes, does all seem ever to continue  -  look,

see, Franco gone, and Tojo gone and

Ceacescu and Selassie too  -  all those

mighty names of the past now gone. Yet

everywhere new names arrive and arise.

Only a freedom collides, even here.

-

Even there, only a freedom collides

with slavery and only a freedom collides 

with war and only a freedom collides with

bondage and ruin and frozen will. The way

it has always been, and the same way

it will always be. Only a freedom collides.

-

The gulls are seamlessly spitting  -  they

gorge and yell, they throw things back

into the harbor grave. We know their

leavings and we know their gleanings.

Outside of that, little else comprises our

matter : the little man, the apron'd one,

comes out sweeping something, to push 

away matter. To haul his moment scurrying.

His moment is free, and yet only 

his freedom collides.