Prisons of all stripe
Are our perennial punitive standard
Because, at the core of living
Is growing
Growing is a hunger and a reaching
Yearn and inquiry.
So of course, as a living species
We move.
We must see a new edge
Where water and land trade tango
And peppers and herbs season
And temperatures rise and fall
Mountains break the plains
Plains roll the winds
Winds smooth the rocks
Familiar sounds cease
Language shifts from tongues to hands and eyes.
And this is what we deprive
And stagnate in those we deem our worst.
But what peppers and mountains and distant seas
Could redeem us of malice and poverty.
