He was born right into a storm, lightning cut up the summer season sky, in a
village the world had not but heard of.
The midwife known as it a foul omen, his mom known as it an indication. Your first
life started in a storm, below open sky.
One winter evening you ran your hand alongside a cat’s again, and the
darkness cracked open with sparks.
Your mom warned the home may burn.
You had been already chasing what you discovered: Mild would return.
Your second life got here underwater, within the present deep. No mild,
no air, the river pulling you below,
the floor closing above you and not using a sound, and
one thing in you refused to sink or sleep.
Your third life got here on the dam.
The water rose. The wall held you in place.
One flash, you turned your physique and rose again into air, and left
the burden of water and not using a hint.
Your fourth life got here in stone and darkish. Entombed for a
evening in a mountain chapel,
visited by nobody. Solely silence and the reminiscence of a spark. You known as
it an terrible expertise and left it there, untold.
Your fifth life got here in fever,
9 months cholera held you down,
till your father stated: Survive, and select your personal floor. You rose.
Not from the prayer, however from the promise he made.
Your sixth life got here in silence, and it stayed.
Each sound reduce via you, a clock three rooms away,
a ringing that will not depart, a noise you discovered to bear, till you
lived inside that noise and made a house in there.
Your seventh life burned on Fifth Avenue, not your physique, however your work. Not a thief
of fireside, however one who stayed with the blaze.
A contemporary Prometheus, your life’s work turned to ash,
“I need to start once more,” you stated, and turned to new methods.
Your eighth life got here on the street.
No storm. No warning. A taxi struck and not using a signal. A
sudden influence: ribs breaking, breath gone.
No diagram this time. Solely the physique, sluggish to maintain up.
The ninth life got here on quiet wings.
That dove discovered you in the dead of night, and your spirit rose. She did
not transfer. A beam of sunshine fell from above.
The life you wouldn’t return from, the one you really liked.
Your mom thought you had 9 lives, 9 shut
brushes with demise.
Every shut name, a lesson. A hand that will lead you out of the
darkness and into the dynamo of everlasting mild. The world income
from the thriller of your thoughts,
Upon your creativeness we stand.
