Thursday, July 4, 2013

Then, There Was No Right to Eat

July 4, 2013 #744

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Independence Day (USA).

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Then, there was no right to eat, nor was health
A right, nor freedom for a slave. Native
Peoples were simply dispossessed, and wealth
Accrued to men only. The fierce and furtive
Cries for love, gay or straight, were smothered.
Non-human animals had no rights, nor children
Left to drunken fathers or brutal mothers.
Oh, yes, that government governed least, but no one
Could foresee the brood of rights sprung
From words that rang out across the western world
That summer day, rights now nearly won,
That long lay fearful in predawn silence curled.
The founders were wise, but to be true to them,
We must apply their words to now, not then.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Mw-xZdCd7C8.

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