A Lady Waits

By Cliff Lake

 

A Lady Waits

 

She looks on with tear-filled eyes,

As her children take up sides against one another:

Misconstruing her meaning as hard as they can.

She has withstood assaults in the past:

Vile caricatures of humanity,

That have attempted to quench her flame,

Or usurp it for their own purposes,

In preparation for such an extinguishment.

Now the forces of greed and selfishness,

Assemble their underinformed minions,

Baiting them with lies and misrepresentations,

Distracting the easily misled with pretty poisons,

Hiding their own identities as the vipers they are.

She must look on with hardened eyes,

An emblem of what could be,

Of what has briefly been,

If not for everyone equally.

And therein lies the conflict:

Too many think so little of themselves,

And the mess they would live in,

Most of their own making,

That they would deny those they can oppress

The same opportunities they have squandered.

No interest have they in fairness,

For they would be left behind

By the more industrious,

And they have no interest in doing more

To help themselves,

For that requires the kind of work

That they have no taste for:

Self-improvement,

Therefore, they will remove the right

And the opportunities

For others to better themselves,

And thus prove the inferiority

They suspect of themselves.

So she must look on,

And hope that once the serpents

Have bitten too hard, too often,

That sleepy minds will awake,

And remember what true liberty is.

Lady Liberty stands,

And she waits,

She fervently waits…

 

Cliff Lake 12/3/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: New York, NY, USA

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