SALISBURY LANDSCAPES POEM 15

Sometimes to be safe, you must be open. There is little to be done when you are scared, but to share it with a friend who cares.

---

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. John Locke

Barbed

It is too guarded, too secret, too safe,

Fenced in we persecute our freedom,

A voluntary act of violence to ourselves,

To shelter from the pains of the real.

To barb oneself is to accept that we,

Without our instinct are as safe as can be,

But what safety can one find so close,

Surely the secret will not stay fast?

We should as the grasses accept our fate,

Blown by the wind directionless in our sway,

A testament to the moment that we share,

Beyond which there is little but the snare.

To be caught is worst but caught we are,

There is no freedom from the guarded eye,

There is no future, present, past or age,

Stagnant and shy we barb ourselves.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. Marcus Aurelius