Jade Berreau

Tupacchopin, 2011

burning stars

poem by JOY BRYANT

 

Those fast burning stars…
They lived true and knew that this was all we had:
this one life, this one time to put it all on the line.
They scraped the gum and shit from the bottom of their shoes,
shaped it and turned it into a thing of wonder, a thing of beauty,
a thing called life.
They blessed the world with a light that’s everlasting.
A legacy…
“They died before their time,” but they did so much with the time that they had. What they left behind will never die.
What they left behind has made the world that much more wondrous,
the sun that much warmer, souls more soothed and spirits lifted, sounds richer,
beauty expressed, love realized, pain transformed, humanity revealed.
Immortality achieved.
Don’t you want to live forever?
What is “legacy”?
It’s…