Shackle-Free Poem by Diana van den Berg

Shackle-Free



The shackles have fallen today
with a crash.

I don’t know why
- perhaps desperation to be part of your lives,
(but then I have been desperate so long)
- perhaps in answer to my prayers,

but whatever the reason
I now
have, take, make
the freedom
to write about you, my children,
without agonizing over
whether
you are both
getting an
exact
share
the same colour
the same size
the same weight
the same value
wrapped in
the same paper
with the same coloured ribbons.

You didn’t understand
why I didn’t write much about you before.

Perhaps you won’t mind
if I write about you
spontaneously,
without measuring.

Perhaps I should
have known this
many years ago.

Perhaps you will forgive me
now
that I think I know
that you would prefer it
this way.

(19 December 2005)

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Diana van den Berg

Diana van den Berg

Durban, South Africa
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