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Festival


How strange to look
out a prison cell window
to see children running--playing
on a prison field: THE YARD,
and hear their voices, laughter
sights and sounds so alien in this
forbidding, bleak, hostile environment
as is seeing affection--love
given, taken, and shared freely:
lovers holding hands, kissing
a mother hugging her child
kids hugging, touching, playing with
an imprisoned father, brother, uncle
unaware of their surroundings, for awhile
the magic of love has transformed
this place of dry grass and pain
that holds the years, and bloody tears
shed by caged flesh and souls
into a field of hope and dreams.
And as I watched it came to me
the sum total of my life, and loss
a deadness within, something missing
from my life and what I was
what I am and am supposed to be
and, whether stolen by life or prison
robbed of healthy human contact, I am
yet able to find comfort in knowing
that something still lived within me
for I FELT the pain of my loss
and while my flesj was not upon that field
my soul was, and I
found hope that I would love
and be loved yet again, and so
later, when the festival was over
the field cleared and empty of all
my eyes saw again the magic
my ears heard the echo of laughter
and my spirit danced upon that field
that wasn't empty at all.