If I Should (1990)

If I should, my woven history, bare
kindly appreciate, nay, not compare.
The visage full but where threadbare,
do gently fill, if you care, not dare.
If I should be bound by my workèd past,
creativity is checked by the last (not leash);
must untangle the knot that was cast (not released),
smooth the thread taut and fast –
for what is life’s greatest freedom, be
OF CREED, OF SPEECH, OR, FROM FEAR, FROM WANT. **
(If one should be asked, say certainly)
the liberty to start, create apart from what’s done
and to do so freely, in perpetuity.

Letter to Brett C. Callis
Singapore
16 March 1990

** The Four Freedoms declared by US President Roosevelt in World War II, c. 1943. See also the Norman Rockwell painting inspired by the same.