ENCARCERATION

What choices made

In the free moments of our lives

For our good;

Would later become the bars

Of a prison;

So much of our making

That we could not

But look through them

With love;

Both for those yet building their bars,

Though thinking themselves free,

As well as the other prisoners

Behind their own bars we see?

Yet we fret not;

Knowing we all find our own walls

Of confinement;

And we all will be free

In death eventually.

And me?

I, like you, struggle…

To live in my prison,

Not to envy the so-called free,

Not to judge the other prisoners’ bars

And to understand those

Who do not yet realize

Their incarceration

Or their potential for true freedom.

But mostly, I like you, struggle

To love my own human frailty,

My prison,

My cell,

Alone with my cross.

So I try to look more to

A victorious one, a savior,

Who did it right;

Who did it for love;

Love of the poor and the sick

And the imprisoned

Wherever he found them;

Love of me

And my prison walls.

2014.02.12.0600 ©

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