Someone Else’s Crime
I will grow tomatoes
When you’ve set me free.
I will live at home in peace
Where all will let me be.
I will wake up cheerful
In the morning to the sun.
I will feel at peace at last,
Once my Freedom’s won.
I have been imprisoned here
For someone else’s crime.
I have lived my life in fear,
And I have done my time.
All I want, is to feel safe -
Relaxed and calm and free.
I have been good, to fellow men.
Why aren’t they good to me?
I try to keep my head up high,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to fly,
When I will go away,
And wrap myself in someone’s arms
Who knows me as I am.
I try to think about that day,
As hard as try I can …
I will wake up smiling,
In the morning sun.
I will kiss the one I love, and
Once this battle’s done …
I will grow tomatoes in
My garden in the grass,
And tie my hair behind my head …
And when this storm has passed,
I will sit up late at night
With cats and cups of tea,
I will live no more in fright
Once I have been set free.
I only want this misery
And fear and pain to end.
I only want a life at peace
Surrounded by my friends.
But that will be another day.
Today I must remain
Within the madness of this place
In fear, and hope, and pain.
But always, I hold up my head,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to go,
When I will fly away …
Not now. It isn’t over yet
I must sit out my time,
As I have done, for all these years,
For someone else’s crime.
- Written by Anna Vera Williams at Age 33
Originally posted on Free Poems for Blogging for Human Rights Day
Recently published at the Asian Human Rights Commission
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Anna, I see you are writing more. This is really good. So full of true emotions. I hope you are doing alright miss. Feel free to email me funny random emails today if you like. I have been sick so that is why I havent been writing much.
I hope you are doing alright BFF! 
Thanks Holly. I have been doing pretty well, concentrating on my sites. I didn’t know you were sick.
I thought you were working on your E-Book! Also I just today saw your comment on our lens and I responded (http://www.squidoo.com/hollymannannawilliams). I was trying not to distract you so you could finish your book! 
Anna, reading your poem on freedom and celebrating our 4th of july reminded me of what a great country we live in here in the USA. We have our faults, but they are overshadowed by all the great things done here at home and around the world. It’s so shameful how some countries cannot see this good.
oh anna,, this one is a knock out.. i feel so much reality in the words as they are spoken…
Thanks paisley. Yes I am kind of happy that I am starting to write some half-decent poetry again after a few dry years (I blame that on my husband. He’s so down-to-earth!)
Holly – I just Googled “BFF” because I didn’t know what it meant. Now I get it. Where’s that necklace??!!
well written and very vivid!
Well its interesting to see that I am to blame for your lack of inspiration “for a few dry years” ,
, very flattering and romantic 
Honey, when all hell is breaking loose, you calmly consider solutions and plot your next course of action. You are very pragmatic. Your artistry and inspirational qualities are not lacking, you have made beautiful things for me from wood and it is because of you that I have any woodworking skills at all. You have written poetry far better than mine and your photographic skills have been incredible from the beginning. But most of all you have the skill of being a husband down to a fine art – loyal, strong, chivalrous, brave, and romantic beyond most girls’ imaginations. Before you came along I had no one to talk to besides my word processor.
Well that’s much nicer, I definitely feel mollified. Though I think you are probably a little biased because you are married to me. I don’t think I’m quite that good and your poetry is definitely better than mine. No contest there. As for photography, Anna has an award of Merit from the New York Institute of Photography. In any case you are the smartest and prettiest girl I ever met and that makes me the luckiest guy alive.
Now this is what I write about. Words like these are what makes long happy marriages. You two are not only poets, writers, craft persons, artists, but also, from these sentiments, married, friends and lovers. Beautiful. Never deviate from this path.
Dear Tom, it has been exactly those qualities in your poems that I so appreciate. They are so frank and from the heart, taking everyday living and turning it into an art. You seem to have a way of turning everyday simple pleasures and turning them into something special, reminding us all that the greatest pleasures are derived from the little things we do. It is obvious that you draw from a vast well of personal experience, having seen both the best and the worst of things, but walked away from it from it with head held high having made the most of it. Truly an example for others to follow.
Is there anything more essential to the human spirit than freedom….Anna have you read Doris Lessing’s “Shikasta”? It is an amazing story involving the history (fictional) of the area that became Africa. Actually I think she has a memory that taps time.
@ pendraggin – Thank you for your comment
No I haven’t read that book, but it sounds very interesting. Africa is one of the 3 continents I’ve never been to, the closest I got was that I could see it from the shores of Spain. But the country fascinates me. I will put the book on my list. Thanks for visiting my blog.