Dikes

It is the fences of old

peeling, crumbling ancient fences

that remain between us

that impede the flow across

those of us who can share.

Old fences and stone walls

markers left behind by

generations and cultures long past

long gone

long forgotten

are the ones that prevent

us neighbors from sharing ourselves

with each other.

The habit of keeping

keeps hidden our money and care

keeps guarded the goods we tend to

believe are our sources of worth.

We keep all "our own" from each other

because that's what we've learned to do

because those old fences and stone walls

are unknown legacy, much older than me and you

and WHO KNOWS what OH LORD might happen

if we tore down those ancient lines through.

We keep all "what's mine" from each other

as ransom to trade for "what's yours"

for just as I don't just give you what I have,

just so others offer me no dues.

Mirrored from the fear of giving

is spawned the fear of receiving

for an other's intention is not seen

and the giver's may come out to be mean.

Prickly limits are built as barbed wire

sometimes buffed with cameras and mines

but the tighter we squeeze at our boundaries

the less freedom we have to be just fine.

Our dikes and our dams and our stop valves

were set up long centuries ago

but their builders did not design them

for the race into which we have come to grow.

Their rigidity smells of obsolescence

and they often impede desired flow

hoarding oceans gilded and guarded

while mere trickles suffer others to grow

but the "reverence" many assume for the ancient

blinds them to the sorely-needed overhaul.

We are not but hollow containers

worth only what we come to contain.

We are living homes, which though require upkeep,

could so very much more potently help each other sustain.

The long-winding path of the eternal builder,

inevitably tears down what once was new

but the husk must be shed over and over

if we are to know and be what is true.