What if we discovered
we’d been, all this time,
strung up in nets,
our juices harnessed
to do things we would always sense
were sideways to our desires,
so that we felt the shadow
of regret, of disappointment
dogging our every act

If we should learn
this is not our purpose,
this is not our true companion –
we are not designed
to do things that always
cause somebody pain

If we could feel
our energies released
from those old nets,
slipping through like bars of light,
gaining strength and brightness
with their freedom

What joy, what power
we would wield! slicing away
everything unmerciful, unkind,
gathering the clan of all of us
into our rightful, foreordained design.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 7, 2017