Metaphors for Choice

If you can’t see the path of freedom
If you can’t view autonomy
If you look for the bad and hope for worse
You impinge your liberty

If you fail to see behind the veil
Don’t turn the stone to view
What’s hidden underneath you won’t
Ever see what is true

And if you don’t listen, only shout aloud
Your thoughts will fall unheard
For freedom’s path reveals all this
Away from wars with words

It wends along the open road
Isn’t constricted or constrained
By dichotomies or biased thought
More so along a spectrum lane

A spectrum lane of diversity
Where all shall have a voice
Where freedom and autonomy
Are the metaphors for choice.

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Stop The Parent Clones

Give your children freedom
Bequeath them autonomy
Encourage them to be themselves
And not a mini-me

For a parents job is not there to
Manipulate the mind
More so help children forge their own
Identity in kind

To help them grow their own ideas
Speak words that they alone
Have crafted independently
Not as a parent clone

And then our children will achieve
A sense of who THEY are
People in their own right who shine
Light from their own blessed star

Marionette

When forced to give up and give in
Capitulate; resign
Our deeds lose power, lose reason and
All sense, rhythm and rhyme

For when autonomy is stripped
And taken right away
The value’s lost in what we think
The things we do and say

Less we become a marionette
A puppet on a string
In the control; under the spell
Doing another’s thing

A product of non-entity
A straw man with no voice
Manipulated and reduced
To one who has no choice

And then meaning evaporates
Diminishes and goes
For all the puppet does is just
Put on another’s show

Terracotta Ancient Greek dolls. Exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Room 56. Picture by Giovanni Dall’Orto, November 11 2009.

The Love Of Family

You’ll never earn a child’s respect
Through blackmailed bribery
You’ll never buy their devotion
Demanding that they see
You or indeed spend their time
In worshipping the ground
On which you walk; They can’t be bought
Nor will they e’er be found
Until you start to step up to
The mark; be honest too
And stop dangling a carrot for
Them to then follow you
Nor give them gifts or scare them from
Those whom you maybe hate
For children have autonomy
Their own pathways create
And only by your selfless heart
Will they then turn to you
And see your unconditional love
Be inspired by what you do
For they did not chose to be yours
They don’t elect to be
Tied up in your emotions nor
Your deep set jealousy
But they will love you to the end
They’ll love you; ask for nil
And you – well honour them for who
They are; Be constant still
And be the best that you can be
Embrace the truth and see
That you can’t buy and cannot sell
The love of family!

There are those in society nowadays that believe that children can be bought with rewards, bribes, demands – call it what you will.  There are those who subscribe to the doctrine of blame and blackmail to get their children to do their will.  There are those who coerce and believe that they can use all this to control children even starving them and taking away their basic provisions in order to stamp their authority like a brand on their own children.  The truth is children are their own person and have the right to autonomy and as they grow older they learn that others too have similar rights.  If we as adults don’t allow them to develop this and have their own voice, and respect them, then how are we ever to expect them to do likewise.  This isn’t about pampering to a child’s will but stepping up to the mark with responsibility and love.  This poem is dedicated to all those children who are forced to live the life of another and not their own, and our prayer goes out to them.  It is written from my heart to theirs.

The Dream

He had a dream and I do too
Where blame and judgement cease
And truth, responsibility
Are set to fly; released
Where lives are lived with pure respect
For fellow humankind
And stress from others bearing down
Is gone from every mind
Where joy is seated in the hearts
Of those who walk the earth
With peace and love in harmony
Contentment given birth

And though some might declare this dream
Utopian; not real
It could exist if we all thought
Just how the other feels
Take time to see the other side
Have space to include you
And let the I, the me, the self
Perceive altitude view
Whilst honouring the standards that
We hold; those we esteem
As freedom and autonomy
Present out of the dream

 

Teens

They said the teens would sometimes be
A trial; a testing time
A time when doors were slammed in face
And moods would rock not rhyme

They said that attitudes would be
Perplexing at the least
That from such sweet and charming child
Would rise pubescent beast

They mentioned that all speech would be
Replaced with teenage grunt
That hormones would then wax less wane
And surge unchecked rampant

They said to batten down the hatch
To put an armour on
Against the throws of teenage might
When thy will not be done!

But therein lies the issue
For in the teenage years
The will becomes a sticky thing
A battle of ideas

As young minds learn to realize
What makes them think and tick
Their values; not those of their folks
No longer ruled by sticks

A time where pure autonomy
Becomes the thing that they
Harbinger after and crave for
Save each and every day

A time when they take up the wheel
To find a pathway clear
Where wise parents help read the map
But let their teen then steer

Where cars still have dual brake systems
Yet just one set of gears
And plans and dreams stretch out ahead
Reigns loosened year on year

So when they say the teens will be
A trial; a testing time
Take heart for it is not always
And can be just sublime!

Teens sharing earphones, listening music outdoor. Summer time. This image is taken from SCA’s international report Hygiene Matters 2010. For more info, please visit http://www.hygienematters.com . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reciprocity

Release young minds of those who live
Enslaved by adult will
Protect their heart, their lives, their wish
Autonomy instil
And grant them peace and comfort path
The way we’d wish it be
Safeguard their feelings and passions
And give them liberty

For children who are held constrained
By academic chain
Or by the power of autocrats
Who drill them and then drain
Won’t flourish into citizens
Who live responsibly
But bear the brunt to carry on
Their lives quite miserably

So free their minds, release them do
Encourage and inspire
The younger generation to
Grab life and so aspire
To walk a path paved in respect
With love reliably
So they will in turn do the same
In reciprocity

The Gift of Free Will

An evil witch crept up one day
Upon a small dear boy
To steal from him his treasured prize
His gift, his skill, his toy

She came with wart upon her nose
With hat so very black
With gruesome cackle, broomstick bright
With lies, deceit a-whack

But in disguise she masked herself
All dressed in robes to trust
With academic gown and cap
A position so robust

She prepped a cauldron of despair
Lost hope the spell she cast
And in the place of frogs and snails
She cooked a spell to last

She spoke of expectations
She told the boy what she
Thought he should do, what he should think
She zapped autonomy

She added in incentives
Of rewards’ compliant pill
She threatened hurt and punishment
If he failed to bid her will

She ransomed him with sweeties
Then blackmailed him with her curse
To act just as she wanted him
With smiles but rather terse

And then when he’d submitted
She vanished out of sight
To leave the small child quite confused
His life without a light

His heart so wrenched and sold out
To the witch who stole his prize
The gift of independence and free will
Consumed by her disguise

This poem reflects on a year when reports of adults abusing their position to obtain control over young impressionable children seems to have been quite prevalent.  From the teacher running off to France with one of his pupil’s to parent’s abusing, in some cases even murdering, their own children, we live in a world where those that have a duty of care over our children often abuse their position.  The end result is never a happy one and can happen to any child, so if there’s one thing we can all try and wrap up this Christmas, I pray it will be the gift of autonomy and free will for our children, and in giving them that undertake to move into 2014 nurturing this gift in their lives so that their outcomes honour their expectations and aspirations and not anyone else’s.

We should point out that none of these poems are about a specific individual or identify anyone in particular  (click here for full disclaimer)

Free!

Shackled by society
Enchained within the mind
Bound to expectations
With eye on back behind

Enslaved by thoughts and bias
Held back by prejudice
Constrained by ego’s damning
Confined by selfishness

Imprisoned: where’s the justice?
Judgement’s hostility
Throw off the chains that bind you
And stand up for liberty

Liberty – oh freedom’s legacy
Altruism’s sovereignty
Step up autonomous in truth
Live lives that sets you free

 

To Yourself Be True

To My Children:

You know I’ve always tried so hard
To do my best for you
I’d give my all if that would help
Make sacrifices too

I’d not stop at any boundary
Nor falter to go on
If you needed me I’d be there
I’d stay and not be gone

And yet now that you are older
My best is not so much
The need for me to hold on still
But let go of my clutch

For the best now I can help with
Is access on those days
You need a shoulder or a hand
Or light to guide your way

So that then so ultimately
It’s simply down to you
To take the best of all you’ve had
And to yourself be true