After centuries of darkness
I am in the light.
After centuries in prison
I have been released.
I am one of the free
the end of a long line of slaves
millworkers and miners
strangers to the daylight
sweating in the stale air
deafened by the rattle of looms
lungs filling up with cotton dust
shaking one another to stay awake
(because if they fell asleep they never woke up)
and shadows that stalked the underworld
suffocating slowly as they clawed the seams
in a darkness that sweltered with danger.
And before them, peasants and serfs
shivering and starving through winter
stooped over ploughs and scythes
chained to patches of their masters’ soil
through endless stagnant centuries
rounded up like cattle by lords and kings
leaving their fields and families to rot.
Generations haunted by disease and death
traumatized by fear and loss
broken parents burying children
orphaned children numbed and scarred
defenseless against a brutal world.
A whole world of possibility
shrunken to a tiny dark circle of hell
souls like rivers, deep and rich,
shriveled to muddy pools.
Freedom isn’t always easy —
too many choices can confuse you
too much open space can make you feel exposed
like soldiers at the end of a war
unnerved by silence and stillness —
you might feel guilty, that you don’t deserve your freedom.
But what can we do but be grateful to them
for struggling through those centuries
to prize open this window of light?
And we can grow to deserve it by using it.
We owe it to them not to waste it
to never take it for granted
and always appreciate the fresh air and light
and the freedom to be instead of just to do
to stop and look and contemplate
and most of all, the freedom to become
to explore the depths that were closed to them
to release the potential that was dammed inside them
and let ourselves flow as fast and as far as we can
and try to illuminate the darkness
that still fills the lives of others.