A New Song

Ever since your birth, we knew that you were something special.
From the moment that you took your first breathe until you had drawn your last
The latest song was always at the tip of your tongue.

I believe that you saw silence as a personal offense- a stifling of the souls
Primal utterance, because when mama needed quiet time, as she often did
She would yell at you to stop “that loud ass singing” but
Music…..Music was your prayer
Your prayer to an unwelcoming universe
Your prayer to an unseen God
Who always seemed to “make a way out of no way”
Your prayer when times were Hard
When money was scarce
When food stamps weren’t enough
When people left us
When doors were repeatedly shut
When the pink slip neatly attached to the front door awaited our discovery
And the inevitable process of packing up all our shit.
You sang.
You sung your way through both the good and bad times
You sung through all of the misunderstandings
Through loneliness
You sung when the plastic on window could no longer withstand the rain
You sung when there was only peanut butter, no jelly, and a few slices of stale bread
You sung on the car ride to the Welfare Line
You sung your way through jail house visits
In fact, it was there that you first sung Amazing Grace
And oh how the tears showered down.

You sang the blues every month when we didn’t know where the rent money
was coming from
The gospel songs were saved for the good times.
And country music…..well let’s just say it was never your thing.
Music was your religion
Your Buddha
Your Jehovah
Your Allah
Your Confucius.
And even as you stood poised on the edge of that cliff
That cliff inside of you
The part inside of you that dreamed your escape
You had the courage…
The courage to part your lips
Open your mouth
And simply just sing.