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Charles (a response to Phillis Wheatley)

by Hakim Bellamy

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about

This poem was written for the annual Dia de los Muertos Celebration at the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM on November 2nd, 2014. It was shared for the first time in public there. It is a response to Phillis Wheatley's "A Funeral Poem on the Death of an Infant aged twelve Months"

I suggest you read her poem first here bit.ly/1sax0QQ

lyrics

Charles

It takes the moon
29.5 days to do one full halo
around the earth.

After approximately a year on this planet,
one full hula ‘round the sun,
he’d seen enough.

Made his next milestone
a headstone.

The high chair
he never came down from.
The casket
he never quite grew into.
But he knew…

knew life was too short for nicknames.
He’d never be Chuck, Chucky
Charlie or Chance.
He’d always wear his birthday
like it was yesterday.

He would treat his name
like a gift.

He would learn to fly
before he walks,
while his parents
would learn to kneel
before everything else.

Because Charles
was well practiced,
like every well loved baby,
his feet hadn’t touched the ground
in all 12 lunar laps
of the moon.

Barely reached the age
of reaching.
Old enough to cry
but not yet old enough
to hate…

only love.
Which he was born with.

Which he gifted
those who wrapped their arms around him,
those who passed him
from bosom to bosom
like a heart transplant.

Like a heart attack
that sends shockwaves
through gene pools.
Turns family trees
to pulp fiction.
Shakes them down to the roots.
Splits them in half like
the finger of God,

like his whole entire hand
in the cradle.
Like superhuman trafficking
and the man upstairs
wants his baby back.

Like SIDS never knew how to tip toe,
and heaven
never knew its own strength.


After 12 full circles
around the planet,
the moon came for Charles
like a vulture.

Many rotations later
the parents quit weeping
over first and last Christmases,
over tooth fairies
that never came.

They simply hung
a framed death certificate
along side his birth certificate
on a nursery wall,
where his high school diploma
will never one-day be.

However, he will leave
at least 18 years
of lessons, in his wake.

(c) Hakim Bellamy November 2nd, 2014

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released November 2, 2014
Hakim Bellamy, All Rights Reserved

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Hakim Be Albuquerque, New Mexico

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