By Chad Norman

Freedom surrounds my life at the moment

bees doing their thing in white clovers,

laughter at a nearby picnic-table is loud,

a hot late-day sun turns leg-skin red,

the whir-like noise from the college cafeteria,

a microscopic fly’s blood hit across this page,

freedom has the voice of a young Bocelli,

but I speak for you

caught between a decision I know

isn’t one anybody around me ponders,

a decision to be the one who is a parent

pushed against what must be a final wall

by a war your family has never spoke for.

I speak for you

knowing thousands here where you chose

are quick to call you criminal & target,

are convinced they own more than they own

singing to themselves some acceptable version

of the anthem you sat memorizing so long

you now stand on guard more easily.

I speak for you

a little man with a threatening mind,

an intelligent citizen seated alone on a bench,

a Canadian willing to say what it takes

to help you resume being father or mother

freed from the ransom a war insists can be paid.