Under the Skies Above

Above the text of Under the Skies Above, the book carries only a brief note: “After the Miscarriage”. The book does not say whom the miscarriage concerned, and nothing reliable is otherwise known about it. It appears in the first section of The Rose That Grew from Concrete and is addressed to a child that was never born. In her foreword to the book, Nikki Giovanni mentions poems “for his child in heaven”.

A Child Waits Under the Sky

The speaker imagines his child waiting somewhere under the sky to be blessed with love by two people. A part of him, a part of her, and a part of their shared love are meant to protect it, even though it exists only “dormant.” In this way, the poem transforms loss into a future that remains open.

In the middle, it becomes personal. In his dreams, the speaker wonders how he could guide a son properly when he does not know what is right himself. Whether the child comes into the world in wealth or in poverty: it will not lack love. In the end, the child stands as a gift from God.

The Question of Fatherhood Runs Through His Work

The question of what makes a good father runs through Tupac’s work. In If I Fail, he cites the lack of a father as one of the hardships of his life. Later, he wrote songs addressed to an unborn child, such as Letter 2 My Unborn (released in 2001). Under the Skies Above shows the earliest version of this theme, written by a young man around twenty. The connection to the songs is an interpretation based on the motif, not a documented intention.

There is no exact dating; according to the preface by Afeni Shakur, the poems date from the years 1989 to 1991.

More about the book and all poems in the introduction.