Gray beginnings to spring
marked those March days.
Half-life in another land,
when from sanctuary I was torn
thrust from my hard-worn space
into an attic room, resembling cave,
except with thin walls and no solitude;
silence departed amid demands.
“Take up your destiny,
duty of economic necessity,
shackle your imagination,
serve only production,
what matters is making money,
possessing material prosperity;
don’t let eternal fool you
life ends in the grave.”
Seeing then chains you bore,
knowing irrationally, ‘there’s more’;
new self began to emerge,
from your despair I diverged
finding through experience another way,
unbidden lovers came, found me
in sunny grove reading poetry;
chilly winds stripped those trees.
Yielding then I embraced conformity,
served corporate will reluctantly,
until unexpected liberation,
opened chink’d cavern again.
He loosed bandages from my eyes,
called out into strong sunlight,
causing me to raise my voice,
prophesy to dry-boned society;
“economy for people, not people for economy.”
© Phil Kemp 2026
