What is power?

If you caged a butterfly
just to watch
it spark 
round the glass
wings like wind on silk curtains
falling from the jar
when you rose to tap
not wanting it to be dead
not wanting it to be still
so you could
lasso your control
as a corset round its 
frail paper body
the squawking crowd
cry that you alone keep it alive
and that you help it fly
by caging it
and calling it your own
shouting that this is power
this jailing of the butterfly
they say you should name it
but it is not yours to give
branding its wings with
your weighted words
you know it will not be able 
to fly under the 
suffocating mass
of your hand
the crowd saying this is power
the glass menagerie
you snared it in
from the meadow
from the flowers
you lift your hand
they think you reach to tap
the glass cage
but you push it over the edge
the shrieking crowd rush to see
the butterfly rise from the shards
and the audience bloodies 
their feet on the broken cage
seeing it fly to the window
the crowd has you by the collar
why
why
they spit out
because 
you say
have all your hearts
staled the right in power
the choice 
the devilish belief
that we can only walk when
there are stones beneath our feet?
that we can only climb when
there are ladder rungs to 
push down on?
no
the world is brighter than that!
power is not the chance to do wrong
but the choice to do right
I will see no more jars 
no more watching 
a creature in spite
of how its trapped wings 
lift you higher
the breaking of the cage
untying of the silken wings
from the steel hands 
of the imposter's control

that is power