Liberty and Justice

11 July 2022

Someone should tell New England
that God has not made up his mind
about how to best organize life,
nor should we, being free.
But why freedom? What do we achieve
in that ecstasy known by frontiersman,
and by them alone? The achievement
is justice, though fleeting it be,
and it is not your grandfather's justice.
Then liberty, justice, and us here and now,
in the swirling of time, decide once and for all
(not for long) how life is, what it is,
and shall be. But how free shall we be?
Free enough to revisit these questions
posed back at the start, and all answers so far,
with an eye to revision, but not revolution,
assuming no violence is warranted, knowing
that violence can never be totally barred,
for it comes from a failure to question in depth
and in time. So let's question. Thoreau
may have been on to something, and so we may be,
if we ask ever deeper what meaning dwells here,
where we are. What is Liberty? Why it and Justice?
Could either be without the other?