a letter to Ilhan Sami Comak

I bring you the season of tulips

and lilacs from our spring season in Ontario

The smell of lilacs is fresh citrus

A reminder of how beautiful spring is

Outside of your prison bars

For more than 25 years

I come bearing the sounds of robins & bluejays

The sighs from the weeping willow trees

As I open the window 

There's black raven flying above our maple trees

Its powerful wings reaching for the sky

I weep when I think about prison walls & cages

We are meant to fly, unchained

And walk, untied

Not of fear or rage or bitterness

But with gentle voice

I hear you

Above the rumbles of dust storm 

The cry for justice

Between dusk and dawn

You will persevere with your will of steel 

One day, you will be walking free

And writing back to me

How you got lost in the forest

smelling the wildflowers   

with petals bluer than the sky

******

Note about the epistle poem:  

You can read three poems for and poems by Ilhan Sami Comak who has been in a Turkish prison for 27 years. He was arrested as an activist and later became a poet in prison.

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub- Poetics - Uncaging the Poet, with guest host, Paul from Parallax.   Please join us for the theme of justice for those poets behind bars, when the pub doors open at 3pm EST.