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Without my ID

Regular readers will know that once a year I share this space with a fellow prisoner. Last year the poet was an Anglo-American who cited how many families abandon their relatives in prison. This year the poet is African-American.

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He laments how the United States has gone to such great lengths to deprive African-Americans of our history. Ironically — because of the interactive kindness of an Anglo-American-Australian — I will share a bit of that history in this space next week.

Without my ID

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Take me to the beginning;

Ìýgive me back my past

let me count my tree rings

and know their stories at last.

If someone were to ask me,

Ìý“son, what is your name?”

sure, I know I could tell him mine

but not if my fathers' were the same.

It is very important

to carry your identification

so you will know whether to

connect or sever the labelisation.

You cannot have tomorrow's future,

without history's gift of today.

Is where you want to go all new

or is it where your mothers' spirits lay?

Why will they not let me sit a spell

beneath my family tree?

Is it because its fruits are divine,

that would better enable me to see?

Were you to leave your residence

without your house keys,

surely you would feel locked out

and more than a little ill at ease.

Well, this is how I feel about my past

for many have hindered its entry;

throwing me non-truths,

guarded by US sentries ...

Without my ID.

[Brandon Astor Jones is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or e-mail <BrandonAstorJones@hotmail.com>. You can visit his web site at http://www.BrandonAstorJones.com>.]