freedom/fight/or

Sources: an early, weary drive north on the interstate. An old song about a prisoner of war. A conversation with my sister, in which we agree that next time we get the question, "So, what do you do?" we're going to answer, "Freelance Freedom Fighter". And a dreamtime meeting with an old friend, now out of touch: a friendship which carried much ambivalence, and many unresolved questions. So.

So we meet again
with familiar calm good humor in yet
another undefined transition space
just like each untenable place
where we crossed paths before
I might've been your partner in a different lifetime
the one that I was raised for and rejected
the one of us and them
the one I met you in
and you might've asked me to
but for the war and the gulf between us

one true mountain man
almost archetype
still wandering free in the world's wild lands
for now in the storm of desert sands
but ready and able to
chop the wood
carry the water
defend the homeland
and still extend a hand my way
but what am I my friend to do with
my four years of leftist education
ten of blood sweat tears for Spanish
and a lifetime of subverted fire?

there's no such thing I hear
as an ex-Marine
probably less a former freedom fighter
in the land of shock and awe
but every soldier battles
against another's present freedom
don't they
and aren't we all some prisoner
wrestling this life
the weight of history
and conflicted possibilities
to make it home

how many times the futile wish
that one shot through with hidden brilliance
would rise up and transcend his leaden past
if not his repressing present

every man an empire
glorious expansive immaculately ruled
and one tenth the size of my existent holdings
at least the terrain that I'm allowed to see
every companion portal open
to fantastic undiscovered country
for which I will pack myself
into tiny and secure boxes
for supposed adventuring again

is there no path of mutual liberation
no common ground defended, sacred
no coexistent freedom left
to fight for?