Highlighting Anna Vera Williams's - Ponder Long On This One!

Someone Else’s Crime

I will grow tomatoes
When you’ve set me free.
I will live at home in peace
Where all will let me be.

I will wake up cheerful
In the morning to the sun.
I will feel at peace at last,
Once my Freedom’s won.

I have been imprisoned here
For someone else’s crime.
I have lived my life in fear,
And I have done my time.

All I want, is to feel safe-
Relaxed and calm and free.
I have been good, to fellow men.
Why aren’t they good to me?

I try to keep my head up high,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to fly,
When I will go away,

And wrap myself in someone’s arms
Who knows me as I am.
I try to think about that day,
As hard as try I can…

I will wake up smiling,
In the morning sun.
I will kiss the one I love, and
Once this battle’s done…

I will grow tomatoes in
My garden in the grass,
And tie my hair behind my head…
And when this storm has passed,

I will sit up late at night
With cats and cups of tea,
I will live no more in fright
Once I have been set free.

I only want this misery
And fear and pain to end.
I only want a life at peace
Surrounded by my friends.

But that will be another day.
Today I must remain
Within the madness of this place
In fear, and hope, and pain.

But always, I hold up my head,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to go,
When I will fly away…

Not now. It isn’t over yet
I must sit out my time,
As I have done,
for all these years,

For someone else’s crime.
~~~

- Written by Anna Vera Williams at Age 33

Originally posted on Free Poems for Blogging for Human Rights Day

Recently published at the Asian Human Rights Commission

I knew I would post this on a Sunday as soon as I read it, because we all need to ponder these words, think about the individual who is writing this poem...and pray that they will be able to forgive...