Letter to my nephew

Then I saw you
echoing tan, round fruit
full as my baby brother's face.
You are a print of him.

Jumping fiercely,
you are your mother's child.
You grip her tightly.
She will work to feed you.
Endure grease and sweat.
Open textbooks widening
tunnels of opportunities
spread out as veins
in earth's soil.

Land where your tiny feet grow larger
where safety is a clipped timeline.
Some will tell you books are for readers white as paper.
Others would hand you smoking poison in pipes,
Pierce you with loaded barrels of lead,
Tell you steel bars and concrete are your home.
I write these words to tell your enemies, to tell you,
Your breath is miracle.

I write these words to tell you
about your father.
His red tongues of rage ripping
through songs ignoring
butterflies, kisses and sunlight.

Your father who fails to see
school is a game
played by cutthroat intellects
just like game ran
by on-the-corner hustlers.

Your father ignores
your grandmother's advice,
a cluster of love charms
on a bracelet
kept close and safe.

Your father flails in empty rooms
where he thought he would find
more than his father's indifference.

While searching
your father left you behind
as a reminder that my baby brother
became stranger.

I write these words to tell you
you were born in a time
when men and women throw breath
at each other like fists,
instead of taking air in tandem.
You were born in a time
when failure is expected.
You were born in a time
when hair and skin mattered.
You were born in a time
where money carves roads for those who have it.
You were born in a time
when I must reach out to you
in spite of distance.

I give you these
five simple directions.
Fight.
Love.
Grow.
Live.
Survive.

- Tara Betts, copyright February 2000