SEED PACKETS

BY THE WRITERS OF OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY

One dark morning in December 2023, we asked our OSP writers to spend five minutes thinking about seeds. We collected the scraps of paper and stored them away until this spring. Two writers are still with us at OSP, one has released, and two writers are now at Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario.

NOLAN BRIDEN
One day the seed was planted. Big hands took the soil and made a perfect bed in the ground. The earth held the tiny pod that looked ordinary. The little seed was covered in a darkness that smelled of so many lifetimes, colors so robust that the explosion of cosmic burst — shot out in every direction. The seed took to roots that held in the earthen soil and one day the seed broke free into the light of day.

I think about seeds and how complex, yet simple they are. How seeds give life and are life. They are the pumpkin seeds roasted that nourish our bodies — those seeds collected after carving a pumpkin in a Halloween season. I think of the metaphorical seeds of writing. I think of the energy that people close to me give to the spaces that help grow, nourish and give safety in such unsafe places. Seeds I think can be so compelling, and joyful if we can see.

JADE
Seed can be negative or positive, I guess it depends on how you feel that day and what you are going through. The seed can be planted for others for a positive gain and maybe turn their seed into something that has more meaning and more purpose … like maybe it might give that little kick start to their positive past instead of the negative path they were on.

STRESSLA LYNN JOHNSON
I planted a seed,
in my mind.

A seed of strength
compassion for the dark.

The seed was planted
in real time in 1997.

I planted a seed in
the heart! Quiet recess.

A seed of home — without fear
moving in delayed time.

A seed of fearlessness,
planted in the cosmic spirit that is me …

AUSTIN CLARK
An empty seed sits solitary
its emptiness filled with potent potential.
In the depths the earth
it feasts on the absence of light
and savors the energy left behind.
It believes it knows itself.
Its purpose
to transport the future that it may someday contain.
For now the seed rests content in its emptiness
certain that someday it will catch its dream
and ascend upward
ever higher in transcendent contentedness.
I am an empty seed.

SEAN
Potential energies in the form of seeds
can be anything from ideas to weeds.
Carried through to dreams and across seas,
seeds have been coveted and struggled in times of war,
and become invasive species from shore to shore.
My ideas in seed form are powerful, I know
And I don’t have to wait until I get out
to watch them grow. I make the most of each
day wherever I am and nurture my seeds
and those of my bros.