Free Markets and the Wilderness

April 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the environment in honor of Earth Day, which is celebrated today, April 22.

Today’s poem is a political poem about the myths of free markets and the wilderness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Free markets and the wilderness

Are equally fictitious,

Myths of the nineteenth century,

In turn naïve and vicious.

One assumes an ecosphere

That never was, a place

Missing one key animal –

The indigenous human race

That for millennia lived there,

And like the wolves and bees,

Created the true ecosphere,

The one the white men seized

And held as their dominion

For farms and homes and schools,

For factories and offices,

And, yes, for nature’s jewels

That they then called the wilderness,

Curated for vacations,

While those who had once lived there were

Removed to reservations.

The market also never was

Nor ever could be free,

Any more than wilderness,

Of its humanity.

All markets are manipulated

Out of need or greed,

And that’s the only law, though

It’s one you’ll rarely read.

For few would waive advantage to

Unfettered trade restore,

Or see their families starve

To obey some so-called law.

The myth of the free market is

A tool to bludgeon those

Whose interests would be served

By protections they propose,

While those who see the market as

Pristine as wilderness

Themselves break every rule

That might cause them to earn less.

Free markets and the wilderness:

Two myths some would infer

From what would serve their interests.

But of course they never were.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/freema.html. For more poems about the politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Environment

April 17: From Desert to Forest, from Sun to Shade

April 18: Twenty-Eight5

April 19: Thirty-Five8

April 20: Twenty-Six4

April 21: Thirty-Six7

April 22: Twenty-Eight6

April 23: Free Markets and the Wilderness