Outcast Poem by Mary Champion

(A GNOSTIC VIEW)

My hands cling to the rusting iron bars.
I contemplate that mystic, other place.
My spirit and my body bear the scars
made by misunderstandings of my race.
I see a world where life is free and sweet,
where justice rules and no one is abused,
a world without oppression or deceit,
where no man ever stands falsely accused.
Incarcerated in these rotting cells,
not fit to hold the soul imprisoned there;
condemned for ev'ry lie my body tells.
This sentence is too harsh for me to bear.
Oh, when will I be freed of all my sin?
Tear down these brutal walls and let me in!