Supreme Decisions Poem by Dr. Charles A Stone

No hand slips quietly into a body of water
without sending ripples to every shore,
just as no tide washes a beach without
carrying sand away grain by grain.

So it is that no law is passed by Congress
without affecting every citizen of the land,
without impinging in some way on freedoms
spelled out in a tightly worded constitution.

If we want to preserve freedom, then,
we must not deceive ourselves by thinking
that time has changed so much about
the human condition that politicians and judges

should be allowed free rein to drop pebbles into
the constitution or skip stones across its surface
without considering the effect of ripples,
the consequence for grains of sand.