Pray with your feet

March 1 2026- March to End Family Detention- San Antonio, TX

Pray with your feet. 
Let your feet kiss the ground
bringing you closer to all who’ve 
been gathered in prisons.

Walk now! Walk for those 
who no longer can, for those whose 
feet brought them over mountains 
only to arrive in concentration camps.

Now! Now is not the time 
for timid steps, now is the time 
for together steps, for steps 
that lead to the bright horizon of solidarity. 

Heed the altar call, the caged ones 
ask you to come to salvation
yours and theirs—enter 
the street and repent with your feet.

Let your feet shout freedom 
with every step, let your feet 
proclaim belief that all belong,  
let your feet break love’s captor.

This is spiritual work, that will pull 
our bodies into the currents 
of justice, sweeping us all into the 
surging river of belonging.

This river will break the tight 
banks of authoritarianism, 
washing away the stench  
of incarceration, of dehumanization.

And yes, though we will grow tired,
yes, though our feet will blister 
and our backs ache, we will print 
our prayers on this land. 

Our feet will stomp out both 
call and response and in one 
voice we will break the dam and 
all will flow freely to the sea. 

_Written March 1 2026

This poem was written after participating in a march in San Antonio led by a coalition of organizations and community members who are calling for the end of incarceration for children and families in the US. My wife, Trudy Taylor Smith was one of the organizers of the event and wrote this powerful reflection piece. The necessity of this work has only deepened since March and if you live in the US, I invite you to check out resources like Free Families to learn how you can participate in bringing an end to family detention.

While this iteration of family detention is more recent, it is important to remember that imprisoning the “other” is a long-standing American tradition beginning with Native Americans, sweeping up Japanese Americans in WWII, before it morphed into today’s anti-immigrant incarceration-for-profit machine. Powerfully, some of the most vocal critics of family detention are Japanese Americans who were children in internment camps or whose ancestors were incarcerated. I encourage you to find ways to raise your voice and declare that families belong in homes, not prisons.