Seven Basic Plots

Seven Basic Plots

As a child, they could not keep me from mud
Spades, buckets and wet sand.
I loved the mica embedded in earth, the uncorked sky, the grassy stains
Wild mushrooms, Algae, scarlet hibiscus flowers.
Birth was the first plot.

Something changed at puberty
I discovered doors that I didn't know existed
Windows that opened to dreams
I savored the scents of the flesh
And the way the world disappeared when they rose.
Adolescence was the second.

Then I found empty places
where tears flowed noiselessly on earth.
A certain darkness settled in
Things grew bigger than my pain
Light had a lot of thawing to do.
Growing up was the third.

And then the acute cringing
At the vulnerabilities of the one born from me
More difficult it was to stare at the dry shadows
Confronting my child's life...
Parenthood, the undoubted fourth.

Wherever I saw, I saw a blank face
Hovering palely like a white root wrenched from mulch
It had difficulty getting its little heart going.
What can grow in the shade of stones?
Detachment was the fifth plot.

It was time to act according to my nature
To echo and answer my call
Have a clean new sheet, write new music
Climb mountains, pry into roots, make rhymes, face myself.
Old age was the penultimate sixth.

The last plot was mysterious, though there, it never really showed itself
Wove in and out of my eyes' searching gaze.
I wondered if it liked being looked at.
Would I cease or would I be released? The answer lay concealed -
In Death, the seventh, deadly final plot. Still unrevealed.
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