Little Box
Reverend Walter Peters, All Angels’ Church, November 18, 1849
Someone has died, who will never see the black joylight expand in her mother’s blue eyes. Who will never grasp a pinky, nor be danced up, down and around and lullabied all night. Someone who will never come to realize that her Dada’s palms aren’t dirty, they’re just brown. Who made HER mother, HIM father, then broke their hearts. Who is their shooting star, glimpsed only once. Someone who will never laugh, or play, or care … Praying that little box into the earth, Rev. Peters asks forgiveness for his faint faith. He thinks of the life of pain Someone was spared.
“A female still born child of Egbert Stairs (colored) & Catherine Cochran his wife (white) was buried in All Angels’ churchyard, November 18, 1849”—from the church record.
Credit
Copyright © 2015 Marilyn Nelson. Published with permission of Namelos Editions.
Author
Marilyn Nelson
Marilyn Nelson was born in Cleveland on April 26, 1946, to Melvin M. Nelson, a U.S. serviceman in the Air Force and a member of the last class to graduate from air cadet training at Tuskegee Institute. Nelson’s mother, Johnnie Mitchell Nelson, was a teacher. Brought up first on one military base and then another, Nelson started writing while still in elementary school. She earned her BA from the University of California, Davis, and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (MA, 1970) and the University of Minnesota (PhD, 1979).
Date Published
01/19/2016