Requiem for a Brother

by Dan Copeland
photo by Laura Roper

With infant lips of bleeding scorn
You cursed the pain of being born
A tune that soon familiar rang
A dirge that you too often sang
But no one entered, no one dared
Though twas no mystery how you fared
We lived in fear of what you felt
And folded on the hand you dealt.

To drop the chains you bore since birth
You ventured miles above Mother Earth.

A shattered morning’s desperate wail
The mistress in the black lace veil
Sometimes the easiest hand to grasp
Is the one most often saved for last.
The answer no one wished to hear
The path down which you chose to steer
In a new worlds journeys time reminds
That old world hurt you left behind.

For eternal life of bright rebirth
You ventured miles above Mother Earth.

For Jamie
“Say Hello to Heaven”