If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch... - Rudyard Kipling, from "If" On behalf of his country Chávez gave oil to heat the people in the cold Bronx winter, to warm the Natives left out in the cold. He helped create community councils, allowing the people to participate in projects to help their communities. (Would a dictator do such a thing?) Reached across country borders, embracing Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, and others, founding ALBA (the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América), instrumental in the formation of CELAC, PetroSur, PetroCaribe, and Venezuela's membership in MERCOSUR. Traveled back in time to get the camel thread of Simón Bolívar and put it through the eye of the 21st century needle. (Could a rich man do such a thing?) And with deft touch, using that thread of Bolívar's independence from the Spanish Empire, wove it into a new pattern of independence from the Global Corporate Empire. Chávez signed a green energy deal with Portugal. Looked into the Pachamama and of sister wind and brother sun, said: "This type of energy is the future... "We have to start getting ready for the post-oil era." Looked into the future, appointing Nicolas Maduro. Told the people he was one of them, that they are he. And though the people mourn, the words of a compañero, Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, lift the spirits: "Chávez is now more alive than ever." Even in so-called death, he crossed the border of my forehead, into the mind's eye where all can be connected, where all is fair game to see anew how Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias lives inside this poem, inside the people's hearts, inside the tractors' gears, outside with the fields, amid the days and years that follow along the line of lineage whose threads-- when once all woven-- become the blanket that warms the poorest of the poor. READ MORE OF MANKH'S POEMS AND ESSAYS ON AXIS OF LOGIC Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet on Axis of Logic. In addition to his work as a writer, he is a small press publisher and Turtle Islander. He edited and published the book, The (Un)Occupy Movement: Autonomy of Consciousness, Practical Solutions, Human Equality, and hosts an audio show "Between the Lines: listening to literature online." You can contact him via his literary website.