Thursday, January 10, 2019

Bad Poetry: Para los Angelitos Jakelin and Felipe

Last fall, after recognizing local tap water as the source of ongoing glyphosate poisoning, I drank the bare minimum of Aquafina to sustain life. My brain dried out. Hack writing became a chore. Feeling somewhat better now, as the pollution level in tap water subsides, I resolved to resume posting Bad Poetry. So I clicked on the link from this writing site:


Ouch.

What came to mind is an old song traditionally sung to children as a lullaby. So the lines below begin with that song, and go on from there:

A la puerta del cielo venden zapatos
Para los angelitos que vienen descalzos...

At the gate of Heaven they sell little golden slippers
For the little angels who had no shoes while living,
And other pleasant things, and other pleasant things,
and other pleasant things they never had.

And of course these little souls know nothing of money,
But the tears we shed for children turn into silver,
So for the pleasant things, for all those pleasant things,
the cost of those pleasant things is paid in full.

Little Jakelin Maquin, Felipe Alonso,
Were so young and looked so old, so weary and homesick...
Where they are going now, where they are going now,
where they are going now is like their homes.

A large part of Heaven looks just like Guatemala,
And another large part looks just like Nicaragua,
And other places, beautiful places,
heavenly places that men's greed befouled.

Grandparents, great-grandparents, pet dogs and chickens,
Meet them at the front gates of the homes they remember;
They play and tell stories, they hug and reminisce,
they tend their gardens and they sing old songs.

And who knows how long it takes for such little children
To remember that their homes were not quite Heaven,
Or that they were dragged away, when they would rather stay,
because of things they were too young to understand?

After all in Heaven no child cries for its mother;
If their mothers are not there, they have Mother Mary.
If their parents come in late, held back outside the gate
by their sins' dragging weight, all's understood.

But the ones who told their parents to leave their homelands,
Those who planned to use the children for their agendas,
Those people are not found, they never will be found,
their souls were never bound for Heaven at all.

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