Chains

A thought provoking image about the tools we use that both build and destroy.

I gaze upon these rusted chains

And wonder

Of all the tasks they once performed.

Linear bits of steel forged like a molecular strain.

Banded together to hold something fast,

To pull an object a certain way,

To suspend a heavy load from a tower,

What strength, what power

Devised by man.

To ease the burden of a difficult task,

To secure a thing of value to its place,

To hold me tight to a core belief.

Ah, but these chains have a duality,

It would seem to me.

Hard and gray, functional but not beautiful.

Heavy with the weight of oppression,

They confine and restrict,

Subduing the perceived offender,

Chafing both skin and mind,

Sinister in its purpose,

I find.

And is that not the nature

Of all things made by the hand of man?

To build and preserve as a noble task

The ugly chains we forever cast.