An ink bottle lying on its side, ink spilled out across the page, with a fountain pen laid on top. Photo: By David Pennington on Unsplash.
Poem: To Margaret Fell, in prison
'Margaret, I write to you...'
Margaret, I write to you,
XR is the name I wear.
In another time you would too
I know you really cared
about Earth and its wilderness,
about animals and plants;
women like us can’t confess
to being deviants.
When I was brought to Holloway,
no question of release,
‘silent protest’ became ‘affray’,
our testament to peace.
You spent four long years in jail,
stitched and sewed worn stars,
cut your hair but never failed
in the light of who you are.
When you were branded criminal
your tattoo signed in tar,
it read we make miracles
by knowing who we are.
In your death is a founding stone
that prisons cannot break,
whatever sense I have of home
here is where I wait.
If we were to meet inside
I believe you’d recognise
we are sisters of a tribe
whose dharma is denied.
I know cold cells give time to think
and meditate on where
a broken chain provides a link
to mend and to repair.
Steve says: ‘This poem is based on a 1642 lyric, “To Althea, From Prison”, by the cavalier poet Richard Lovelace. My poem is a letter to one of the Quaker founders. It is written by an imagined twenty-first-century female eco activist. I dedicate the poem to a Quaker, Gaie Delap, aged seventy-seven, who, at the time of writing, is in Eastwood Park prison due to a technical issue with her electronic tag following her involvement in a peaceful climate crisis protest.’
