Staging

 

The boy on his bicycle, his bright red bicycle

Journeys around the stage, the square world

A wheel for a head

Another for a tail

He races here, there

Riding free at home

 

As a stag, roaming free

Prey to the hunter

Wheels cannot still him

How will they spin him

Rooted, when they kill him?

 

A sickle handled in a field

Cuts the corn

On a stage of miming

Startles the mind

The boy must range the stage

No bike from the shop, brought in

Will do

 

A hobby horse wheeling

This way, that way

A wheel its head

No other for a tail

His feet its hooves

He races free, at home

 

And yet it is a cycle

Gift of another world

The strange makes familiar

The old

 

A cycle a sickle

The wheel a head

Pedals grow a tail

A pogo stick horse

Races here, races there

Free at home

 

Wound around the stick

A scarf reddens the stick

Red rag to the hunter

His blood wound waiting

 

A shot rings

The boys spins

 

Like the endless sari, unwound, of Draupadi

Like the earthen pot feeding endlessly

Like the water of endless wine

The endless blood of the innocent unwinds

 

 

 

As the stick, the horse, the cycle rears

The boy hears his death

Meets it still, upright

Holds it close

Drops his life

Spills his blood

Walks on

 

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