Egress [“What is it like,”]

What is it like,

                              to be shackled to the chains of freedom,

to the glee of greener pasture? What is it like

                   to be carouseled in the circular dreams of fools,

a play ride

          with suspended hopes that really takes you nowhere.

And a few weeks ago, in my daughter’s old stroller,

                                                 I tended to the wren’s eggs

and watched the hatched birdies

                                                       call out feathers to their wings.

And you wonder why I refuse to learn an old anthem

                               where there is nothing old or new to grasp.

Well, where the young are haunted by the nostalgias of the old, 

     who entrusts the future to the hands of destruction?

Who?

     I promise you, I am not angry, I am just tired of  believing

in a future led by fools.

         And if you hear fool one more time, bear with me.

I come from a nest of oafs.

                                            I come from a nest, of oafs.