What We Are Masters Of Enslaves Us Also Poem by Patti Masterman

How can something like a room
Be substantive enough, to hold us in,
Even against our will at times?

How can something that begins with a nail
And finishes with a hammer

That consists solely of vast expanses of space
Arranged loosely around a fabled nucleus
That has never been seen directly by anyone,
Enclose and barricade one off from the rest of the world?

Why do hands first choose
To erect walls or dismantle them,
As if all was arranged on some unannounced schedule
For just such erections or demolitions?

If a woman unconsciously builds a sanctuary
Around the body of the fetus she is to harbor,
If a man knowingly builds
An entire consortium of containers,
To hedge his bets against nature’s unpredictability

Is it from those first stabilities
We come to realize
That a wall can be made of almost anything,
And sometimes, of nearly nothing,
And that it can be around us or actually inside us?

And though a fetus needs only a tiny space
To grow into, and then is done with it,
He is never really a prisoner, by proof of which
He is expelled from the mother’s body after a time.

But a king or master needs many complex areas
For doing different tasks
So that he may grow into, and through,
And be in control, of everything else
That’s contained within or around his walls,
So that he can oversee even an entire city
If necessary, vicariously.

Meanwhile the prisoner can control only a fractional area
If it can be called control,
And can only implement his desires
On the smallest denizens of creation,
That might wander haphazardly, into his little domain.

Still, the prisoner will always be seen in the same fashion
By the overseer,
And matters about as much to him
As any prospecting insect.