Freedom's In The Air Poem by Michael Shepherd

‘Let Justice be done,
though the heavens may fall’…

Now the overnight, merciful dew
has fallen on the hottest July day
on record, (why does it give us
some sorta touch of personal pride?)
and on my rant of yesterday
about a Britain of whose recent past
I’m more than a little ashamed
in my rather downplayed English way... then
the wickedly and useful perverse mind
turns to what’s good; and
in Saint Augustine’s succinct words,
I exist; I know that I exist; and
I am happy to know that I exist..

It’s hot again today; in London here
a good place to be is hign above London
on Hampstead Heath with its fresher,
cooler air, its natural bathing ponds
and view of City and St Paul’s down there;
presided over by Kenwood House;
filled with the shade of William Murray,
1st Lord Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice,
who in 1772, presided over the case
where James Somerset, slave, shackled
in a slave ship moored off Bristol
on his way to America,
sued his 'master', Mr. Stewart of Virginia
(the English colony, you’ll note) :

‘Let the slave go free’ His Lordship finally declared –
adding the comment with which I began…
and eventually, the heavens fell..
Or perhaps, the earth rose up to meet them…
and generations of proud British and other students of the law
have learned those words about our common law
which His Lordship would perhaps have said,
but didn’t actually: ‘The air of England
is too pure for a slave to breathe, and so,
everyone who breathes it, becomes free…’

Yes, this sweltering hot day, the air of Hampstead Heath
feels fresher, cooler; in the nostrils, filling the chest,
smells so good.