By Yossef Ben-Meir in Marrakech, Morocco
Liberating the groaning is to make the caging groan again and once more and with added horrid measure.
But the newly freed in their embarking,
heading out, moving on, turning, arriving, and decamping,
shoulder their cage steel trap every freedom step forward.
The imprisoned are such in prison
even as they scan from under the open sky
and mosey as they may the boundless earth.
The groaning moaning with the day’s needs in their lap
bode a load of bubbling boiling
that’s sharp against the thankless free.
Oh, but the Arbiter of All will not have
the pointers of pins prickling at the tightly enclosed boundless expanse,
knocked by the exalted one from the pantheon of the exalted of all,
when he saves his own face after face-to-face
with the faceless Master of the Universe.
The narrow lane is the pitiables’ determinant,
with crashing consequences,
the crushing resonating with the like
so crunched for all posterity’s time.
The caged is his cager,
the wracked wracks,
the liberated tears the liberator,
the plagued conjures their boils up in,
the hangman is dangling hung,
the waring for war, striping minds and nourishment,
blowing and tearing hearts,
is nibbled alive until the bucktoothed’s final swallow;
and the servants of the flattened by the decrepit,
live in fear of any crossing,
pray to be spared at any odd sound,
accept any measure if just to return home,
find no declaration cause the value of blood, diffuse the heavy monotony with a fool’s song and dance,
and need no plague to suffer to free the bottled,
who then chug high tower to massive understanding.
Commemorate this deal:
suffer not what we suffer with hands off the sufferance wheel,
walk the sliver beam making shame faces for a different scripture,
quiet when spoon fed,
discard the trap we bear even naked when finally trapped no more—
to spare the born, for water clean, for darkness lightness,
and for frogs leaping, passing over afar.
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Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist living in Marrakech, Morocco.