Dark Legacy

Here my people have seen a century
Where we have been and where I mean to be
If least at last to save our legacy
Yet am I bound here prisoned in my mind
Fettered with ties of time's fabrication
Bereft of life by having left behind
Life for living death by suffocation
Conserving that which is consuming me?

Men came to measure yesterday to build
Apartments in my attic that I might
Have the income by which these bars to gild
Open blind windows whitewash timbers bright
Let in the sunshine to ghost-places filled
With their memories robbing me of sight
Wisp-whispered voices which will not be stilled
Freeze-framed agonies throbbing through the night

Though I have not felt free soon there will be
New white rooms up an ascending stairway
Which they say will be a good thing for me
And they tell me things will all turn out right
That when students come they will bring the day
Into this darkness where my mother wept
Into this place where my family died
Into this night where the evil has crept

Five generations of voices have cried
Drowned out here by our tears: let there be light

+Steven Curtis Lance



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