“Parables” is a poem by Susannah Nevison about destruction split into five sections.
The first speaks of darkness and how it grows in prisoners. The darkness, the evil, eventually pins the person down as others, the legal system and citizens most likely, watch. This darkness is man made and on occasion given to the person, just to see it consume them without hope of light.
The second builds on this concept of hope. It is like the house built on sand that the speaker refers to. Hope is there, but it corrodes overtime, and the prisoners eventually lose it and become like the dead. This loss of hope is not their own doing but what they have been given in this circumstance.
The third is about the redemption they receive. Death row inmates are given a short time with a priest if they choose before they are executed. This redemption comes only with the cleansing, the flood, or in this case the death sentence. Like God flooding the earth, they must be made into something new for redemption and forgiveness.
The fourth is about the citizens, and how they will never grant forgiveness to those on death row. Even when they accept God or pray for forgiveness or whatever the priest tells them will save their soul, the citizens have passed their judgement, and in a way they are the unresponsive God. They hold the final judgement of the prisoner in their hands with jury duty and public opinion, which often effects judges. The redemption and forgiveness promised crumbles from the judgement of “God”.
The fifth is about their deaths and those left behind. They are freed from the prison finally, but only to receive graves. Those left behind realize that the earth is still just the earth, and the cycle repeats itself, a parable to those who come in with hope to such a hopeless place.