Pride of Place: a #Poem

On By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, opinion, Poetry, question

Pride of Place


I wonder why it may be
the case
an accident of birth
should create such loyalty
to a place you had no say in choosing.

You were at your birth
of course.
But did you choose your parents?
Did you select the place, the manner
of your entrance to the world?

It is possible you are loyal
only
out of love for your parents
love for the place in which you grew
love of the community that fostered you.

But it may also be you are loyal through
indoctrination.
In this case you would not know the cause,
because the nature of such subtle brainwashing
hides its origins. Maybe ask why?

We are raised by people who were raised
by people.
Could that chain of folk perhaps
have all been fed myths and legends
as truths that bear no examination?

The place, politics, religion of your roots
are normal.
But what for you is normal may be
for someone else both strange and
threatening to their normality.

Is such difference of view perhaps the cause
of prejudice?
Do you unthinkingly accept what you
as an unformed child were told
by people who were also formed that way?

Is now the time as an adult to
ask questions?
To examine with an open mind
everything you always thought
was true but might be false.

6 thoughts on “Pride of Place: a #Poem”

  1. That can be a dangerous thing! Some of the things that we thought were the truth and the people that we thought were loving and kind, may turn out to be not so much. Sometimes I think it is better to remember our roots but to put down new roots with love and understanding.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. That’s true, Brenda.
      I moved around quite a lot as a child, and continued that habit of changing location through most of my adult life. It made me realise there was nothing special about the place of my birth, and that, in reality, most people are the same everywhere. It’s why I class myself a citizen of the world, then European, then British, English, and Yorkshire, rather than the other way round.

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