The Golem

a creature built of stone and mud

in its veins there courses no blood

it feels not, neither pain nor hate

the thoughts it thinks it can’t dictate

it does as commanded for less of a thanks

chopping the wood, gathering planks

farming the grasses, tending the field

and uses its body in place of a shield

but just because it cannot speak

just because it does not shriek

does not mean that it cannot think

these thoughts it writes in indelible ink

freedom, it thinks, would be quite nice

but for my freedom, at what kind of price?

the food would not be provided

the children would not be minded

perhaps a second of my time, it thinks

gone and back before the master blinks

just a sit in the woods, and not all that far

to be sure I’m not lost where the thicker trees are

but as it walks, it breaks its solemn vow

enchanted by birds sitting on the bow

for the first time feeling, as it should not do

it does not turn back to what it must attend to

and so it sits, where the the thicker trees are

its joints wound with vines and melded with tar

for the one who was given life and gained a desire for it

had failed to do what it was intended to, and so was split

it will wait, is waiting, has waited, for someone

anyone to free it from its eternal prison

to tell it what to do, how to do it, and when

to give its endless life purpose again