i am a dissident, <br />a fugitive, a renegade, <br />condemned by apathy as subversive. <br />i am an individual, <br />a burning bush, <br />a fire in the night. <br />i am a homeless star <br />in a sky gone black, <br />the mouth and face of hunger. <br />i am passion's anger, <br />and compassion's hands, <br />i am a man and not a body. <br />i am a spiritual heretic, <br />a relic from a time <br />when the spirit was the cause. <br />i am a bridge, a pair of shoes, <br />a jug that holds water. <br />i am the seeds, the sower, <br />the rain and the sun. <br />i am the common dance, <br />the holy sweat, <br />i am hard work and erection. <br />i am the prayer prayed <br />by the side of the road, <br />the father's firmness, <br />and the mother's breasts. <br />i am sickness and death, <br />the price of years, <br />i am simple resurrection. <br />i am the lover unchained, <br />the wind that breaks the door, <br />the rain that falls in the naked night. <br />i am the voice behind silence, <br />the shout of the snow. <br />i am birth and beginning, <br />i am the fire of redemption!<br /><br />Eric Cockrell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fire-of-redemption/
