Albert’s dream

A long stretch of time 
passed in prison,
four decades and more 
in a solitary cell of Angola. 
Dear Mom you did ask me often,
Albert, when will you get free?
The question remained unanswered
and you faded away forever, 
I failed to leave wreaths of love
at the cemetery in New Orleans,
I bore the burden of inability
to say you goodbye,
the burden that lay
like lead on my soul.   
Scarcely did one ask
how I passed my time in the cell,
I did it in my way,
I turned the cell into a university
a podium for debate
an illuminating law school,
Nothing put me down,
Terror and torture 
Disgrace and despair
Violence and vileness
Nothing made me cringe or cower, 
Through the cell bars 
I saw a newspaper van
coming daily at dawn 
with the headlights on
giving me a sign 
that I will win one day
and be the lead headline, 
I sat in the bunk 
and gazed at the night’s sky
where my mother morphed
into an astral glow.  
With no evidence 
of stabbing in jail
I was given a life term, 
a travesty of justice, 
I plodded through endless time 
in the sultry sickly cell,
When I verged on seventy
I stepped into airy light
out of the dungeon,
My hair was greying,
but I grew more resolute 
sturdier than ever before,
I do still dream of a land
free of friction and hate,
where the black millions
will stand erect,
where the captive conscience 
and muted music will move into
untrammelled spaces of sunshine.
Ahaduzzaman Mohammad Ali is a former journalism professor of Dhaka University.