Journalist Andrei Aliaksandrau, recently released from behind bars after more than five and a half years of imprisonment, published the poem "Our Freedom" on Facebook.

Shadows of centuries will drown in the dust of roads.
Clock hands will eternally lead round dances.
The search query could not yield results.
What were you searching for? — We were searching for our freedom.
Our freedom — is like hot salt,
that seeps from tired bodies as sweat,
a quiet joy and wild merciless pain,
a mother's secret tears by the postbox.
Our freedom burns as a book on bonfires
and sticks to our feet like heavy loam,
knocks in the temples, tastes like sand in the teeth,
trembles like a flower in the hands of a small girl.
Our freedom always has a future tense.
Among adjectives, it's hard to find verbs.
Our freedom lives independently of us
as a promise and a dream, as a curse and an enchantment.
The only way out is to know there is no way out.
Again, the crane's course will soar to the titmouse.
Only spring eternally arrives on its own,
but for freedom, one always has to fight.
New flowers will break through old walls.
Clock hands will find agreement with the dust of roads.
New hands — in search of an old query.
What were you searching for? — We were searching for our freedom.
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