Hear me
read
the poem as
an MP3 file.
Watch me
read
the poem as
an MP4 file.
Music:
Just Stay.
By Aakash Gandhi.
Music free to use
at YouTube. Illustration credit: AI.
Copyright by
Nicholas 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.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.
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