Freedom

Walking a lane, drowsy September waking

In the wet nettles and overhanging branch drips

With the shifting chatter of sparrows and finch

A blue sky opens up to billowing fields

And, above the hedge, long past the log piles

I glimpse a tower burnished brightly by an early sun

I am free to walk here, head unbowed

Free of the tirade of modern disappointment

So eagerly sucked into our subconscious

From the endless opinionated social dysfunction

Ready at our fingertips to download more

Here, now, I am not a consumer of contention

Not subject to a hundred ways to be more or less
(And none of it for free), postage and packing paid

For someone else's misconception of perfection

Instead, I am reflected as I am in the silver puddles

Imperfectly reduced to wiggly lines and shifting shapes

Drenched full of light and singing with wild birdsong

Poetry Day 2017