Returning to last Thursday evening’s in-prison read-around . . . We continue the practice of weaving lines spoken by each woman present into a poem ‘found’ by weaving those lines together. Below, such a poem speaking to the fire, passion and zeal around the circle. It needs no further introduction.
REVOLUTION IN OUR COLLECTIVE LIFE
Filled with the promise of a just world
one moment at a time,
I struggle to get ahold of that reality –
the flowing of love, love that conquers all.
Slow lovers of women,
we can accomplish anything.
We don’t have to be inmates, we can be women.
Please, let us do it.
Starve the misguided waiting
for the tides to envelope our reality,
a prisoner of our own mistakes.
Where a whole thing is divided it is left looking broken;
this is when you need to fight the hardest,
think about thinking, hug it out from fingertip to fingertip.
What is life’s purpose?
Be together and forget about the pain.
Something hidden opens and fills the air
breathing life into the old, old truth:
ash is no match for the spark
of a good heart and strong mind.
Forget where you are; these walls only take.
Start small; movement has to start somewhere.
I will not be silenced, I will fight back with love,
with lavender to bring peace.
Lift up your head and keep going
pushing into one another until we bridge the gap.
Things can never be the same.
Like a dam breaking forth,
become the untapped potential of our hearts.
I won’t contain the fire of who I am –
a spark of knowledge, a spark of strength
breaking the chain of my distorted thinking.
I am not afraid to speak out.
It only takes one.
swb – 4-2-15 found from read-around read-back lines
WRITING INSIDE VT 
Remarkable
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