Nkosi
-Sundiata Ibn Islam- (Carlos)

Sweet child of my own
So precious is this blood diamond
Cradled in a non-civilization
Plucked from the ruins of an infectious earth pit
Flesh of my flesh, skull of my crossed bones
And descendant of a once great creation
Oh, fullest of moons and light of the night
How have you come to be eclipsed?
Why has the darkness I am encompassed the sun?
Yet my eye sight does not grow dim
But bears witness of the woes to come by stealth and shadows
Upon the long lost souls of a mother's daughters and sons
I am left to rage against the cloudless night these words
How many of your stars have been shot?
For so many are fallen from the sky and sprawled here on Earth
Ill-fated harbingers perhaps of some still more ominous plot
In as much as I rue the day we have become an endangered species
The wretched of the Earth
On the verge of evolution or extinction
Unafraid of the wingspan of disease
Unchastened bt the precision of its claws, wanton and ignorance
None affronted by the death and extirpation
Upon which the epidemic that is our very existence is nested
And has come to be so perilously perched
It is a fearsome bird of prey indeed to know
That has stolen from us our gems so beloved
Worth no more to it than a lump of the finest coal
For its cause is devil may care at best festering within us
And it would stop at nothing less than to fling all
The most and least prized of jewels both
Into the flames of a living hell
And so much brimstone
And what hard rocks are we but fickle chalk?
The outlines of our bodies polotic as the rosetta stone of humanity
Grinded to near dust in the wind
The young must crumble and fall
Ahh, to be swept under the wool formerly pulled over their eyes
For love remains blind to the transmission of opportune infections
And the perdition bred weapon made of sexual animosity as it prowls
The shattered hulls of crystalized tear drops litter this road
To nowhere fast and dying slowly
Waiting and watching
As perpetual foot falls trod only into the loving arms of memory
Of you and I
But not just we two
Then simply said and us
One clan, one tribe, one people
One folk, one nation, one race
And we shall overcome life's separatist devices
Though few we are and divided the fight
To live and die
For Nkosi

Peace be upon those who are rightly guided
Rest in peace Nkosi Johnson
Zulu warrior/HIV/AIDS martyr

Viral down,

Carlos