Innocence Is like an Open Door

July 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem about the dangers of and the need for innocence.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Innocence is like an open door:

Not safe, but requisite to being free.

Darlings of our rhetoric, we wonder,

Evil as the rest but for our words.

Perhaps we know what horrors are in store

Even as we dream of what might be,

Needing, as we preach and teach and plunder,

Defenses that would Xanadu preserve.

Even so, the freedom we are for

Now stands for all a common legacy,

Called forth by masters tearing worlds asunder,

Embraced by slaves consumed with righteous hunger,

Destined to dispute those whom it serves.

All innocents must keep their hopes at sea,

Yearning for an ever-distant shore.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/innoce.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: To the Founding Fathers

July 6: Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

July 7: July 4^th Is a Day for Barbeques

July 8: In What We’ve Done We Take the Greatest Shame

July 9: Innocence Is like an Open Door