National Adult Literacy Database

June 24, 1996

Our story this week is drawn froma powerful collection of stories, poetry and visual art by the students of the school at the Stony Mountain Correctional Institute in Stony Mountain, Manitoba. This dramatic poem by " C T " speaks of the author's inner strength and glimmer of hope through solitude and love of nature.

Freedom

by C.T.

The wind blows quietly

As the grass stirs softly,

On the other side of hell.

The bars on my window,

Are only a near reality

To the fantasy that I see

When I look at the road

in the distance

The years pass slowly by,

and the tears turn into ice,

As the chain in my heart

confines me.

All that I've lost is great.

All that I've found is pain.

The spirits which possess me,

Cry for the freedom of the wind,

But the bars that confine me

Say I have no hope,

But as long as I have the freedom

to dream,

I have the freedom of the wind

And the road ahead of me.

[ Used with permission of the School at Stony Mountain Institute, Spirit Within Our Dreams, Editorial Collection of Meegwetch Wichiwakan Stony Mountain Correctional Institute, Stony Mountain, Manitoba, 1994, p.56 ]