PRISON WINDOW (And the Undying Rose of My Heart)

PRISON WINDOW

And the Undying Rose of My Heart

Ricardo Antonio Garcia

Through a prison window

there were bars and no glass.

Imported people were guards

and the language

they spoke I didn’t understand.

There was an American

in the lot and I heard him the most

teaching

the guards about water boarding.

Dangling my hands out the window

I felt something

on my fingertip that felt so soft.

It took everything

I had to get my head close to the bars

and peer down by its ledge.

How did a rose blossom

in this

dysentery place

that no one new existed

where the smell

of urine and defecation

blocked the senses

from thinking anything but Hell.

Through a prison window the sky

was cloudless.

Exported rain is what we needed

as all

the prisoners were dying of thirst.

There was

a pure red rose in the midst of kayotic men

shouting

and maiming the prisoners by force.

My tears

would be the only element

that would keep the rose alive

and radiant, and so

I prayed that God

would keep this beauty I found

glowing outside.

How did I come to such a place

where

the touch of something so soft

would invigorate me

and make me feel blessed?

I ask God

in my deepest prayer.

The memories

all flashed back like a movie.

Before the enemy

captured me on the field I was phoning

and the

Commander said I should stay put.

A bullet

swept over my helmet and knocked me out

and next thing I was in this prison.

Maybe this Rose

will be the last beautiful thing I will see

before they torture and kill me.

I traveled

all over the World and was a Father of three

and I wonder

how all this came to me.

Something tells me

I ain’t gonna make much longer, so

should I ask

the Rose to die with me?

Cry or die, which shall I do?

Will the Rose

ever survive to tell of my ending?

Through a prison window

I think of my love.

Through a prison window

tell her that I will see her in eternity.

The undying Rose of my heart …