My Fellow Prisoners Poem by Maria J. Andrade

(Sen. John McCain addresses a rally before
'compassionate conservatives'}

“My fellow prisoners
how did we get here,
damaging freedoms gained by
two hundred years of idealism,
blood and death?
We suspend the constitution,
listen to each other’s private conversations,
spy on each other’s books,
web stalk one another’s electrical journeys,
creep into the private room of imagination,
with fear as our constant companion,
seek out “enemy combatants, ”
creating more bombs in the name of peace.

My fellow prisoners
how do we do it?
We extend our prisons to lands
beyond our own shores,
practice torture beyond,
all conscionable definition.
Our prisons were already places of torment,
swollen with the bodies of our people,
of the poor, brown, and black.

We are willing to suffocate our progeny
in the ghettos of inner cities,
pull to their knees,
those who built our skyscrapers,
release the fragile hand of the elders,
who once held ours in childhood,
and as we do,
the soul becomes a small bird,
barely breathing in a dark box.

My fellow prisoners
is too late for us?
Can we yet flee these deadly pens,
we who are the judge, jury and the jailer?
There, on that distant shore of Forgiveness,
is a place of Refuge.
Will we make it to
the ocean of Compassion,
seek out a new future, create a new world?
Rise up now, the darkness engulfs us,
Let us run with all your might!
Escape with our best hope and determination
save ourselves now - if we can! ”