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 referred to as it a nasty omen, his mom referred to as it an indication. Your first
life started in a storm, underneath open sky.
One winter night time 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 gentle,
no air, the river pulling you underneath,
the floor closing above you with no 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 with no hint.
Your fourth life got here in stone and darkish. Entombed for a
night time in a mountain chapel,
visited by nobody. Solely silence and the reminiscence of a spark. You referred to 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 minimize by you, a clock three rooms away,
a ringing that may not go away, 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 have 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 with no signal. A
sudden affect: ribs breaking, breath gone.
No diagram this time. Solely the physique, gradual 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 liked.
Your mom thought you had 9 lives, 9 shut
brushes with demise.
Every shut name, a lesson. A hand that may lead you out of the
darkness and into the dynamo of everlasting gentle. The world earnings
from the thriller of your thoughts,
Upon your creativeness we stand.
