Fettered

Oh, the fine, fragile folly of men, what fools we are
to see ourselves as more than mortal. With each
leap ahead we cannot turn back to see the gifts
discarded, we are blinkered to our past. Scoffing
at its primitive, dragging steps, we gaze long and deep
into the harsh blue glare and fail to find its hold constraining.

Every drawn breath/puffed chest/mouth open dismays
our possibilities, we are captives of this moneyed age,
frittering our finer gifts on hollowed adorations. Wary
of a world that now fights back we bluster, ‘our importance
is the crux of all that lives,’ and so we kill and maim and slay
to make our footsteps pave the way to simpler times, with
fewer lives and less constraints on freedom.

No masks here. No fettered steps. No closed doors and modest
distances. ‘We know best,’ we say, until there are none left to hear it.