I Hear My Father's Life Singing Poem by Emily Myers

I hear the bars slam shut
Iron molding into iron
Black eyes that scream with anguish
I hear my father’s love ringing and echoing…fading…
I hear the inmates singing
Harmonicas raging
Blaming everyone for their pain and discomfort
All the while forgetting the pain they’ve caused
I hear the discordant melody of a mother’s gently falling tears
The lullaby she sings to comfort their child
These bars burn with the shame of his song
in his cell and in my heart
this song calls out to the world, reverberating crime
I hear the song of the prison cell
Muffled and bleak
With suffocating dreams and nightmares, and screams
My father’s love now distant and forgotten
A mere tune, slightly off pitch and wordless
I hear this pain, anguish, shame, and betrayal
That syncs my heart with his
The rhythms matching the blood in our veins
This is the song sung for a thousand generations
A song to be sung
For many more generations to come