The caption said that you
Lost the fight against cancer,
But I doubt very much that your
Smooth little fingers ever formed a fist:
In harmony, you were for everything,
Against nothing, too fluid to take a stance.
As I glimpsed your rounded face,
My eyes began to weep for the child
That lay dead in most everyone;
And yet your eyes remained clear,
Timeless till the very end: for you
Never settled into your skin;
Never hid behind a mask
That would require lifetimes to shed
To reclaim your lost innocence.
Perhaps you were too young to know
That you were supposed to suffer;
Too free to be bound by expectations:
Even if your resilience startled the masks
That surrounded you, awaiting your death,
To feel comfortable again beneath them.
Disease was likely your friend,
Your oldest companion; the treatments,
Your only pain, but even they were not
Your enemy: pain, to you, was exciting,
A new experience that roused your senses
But you welcomed anyway, and thus,
Knew only a short while.
For you saw how resistance
Could seize the vulnerable faces
That swayed above your crib, keeping smiles
Far from their borders and, surrendered,
You could give no more weight to death.
You carried instead, the torch
Of the joy they abandoned, fueling it
With songs where raindrops
Became lemon drops and gumdrops.
Nature was ever sweet upon your lips:
You, who were yet to cast a shadow,
To darken the innocence that smiled at you
from the heart of every thing.
You were born an old man,
Having held hands with death
While still in the womb; yet you
Lived more in days than most in years
And you knew nothing of time,
Which was your greatest blessing:
For time begins where wonder ends,
And in you, like a relentless flame,
Wonder burned strong till the very end
Of your fourteen month stay.