To the Prisoners

Notes

I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
Dark gardening
in the vertigo coal.
In the hot paralysis.
Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.
Where it is dry.
Where it is dry.
I call for you
cultivation of victory
Over long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.

Over
what wants to crumble you down, to sicken
you. I call for you
cultivation of strength to heal and enhance
in the non-cheering dark, in the many mornings-after;
in the chalk and choke.

Gwendolyn Brooks