The Stars Beneath Our Feet By David Barclay Moore

"We have not met on earth again. And scarcely shall; there doth remain A time. A place where we shall meet, And have the stars beneath our feet." - Richard Chenevix Trench, "The Story of Justin Martyr"

Lolly is a teenage boy who does a phenomenal job of thriving well while other influences around him and going back and forth to school and during his regular routine might try to say otherwise. He loves Legos and sometimes computer games. But his architectural adventures are where he really hides so that he may soar at ease during his daily and common life. Lolly builds imaginary high tech office buildings and even apartment complexes complete with bridges and sometimes waterways. His imagination soars especially high whenever he has a room of his own to build a skyscraper with a view of his world. His best friend Vega who practices violin each day faces his own set of challenges. He has cousins whose motives are not so pure of heart and mind. They are constantly trying to get he and Lolly to join a group of boys who are choosing to live a life that opposes working toward goals that would lead to a better and more promising and stable future. So, now there are other rivers which Lolly and Vega and some of his other classmates who want to go another and a much better and peaceful way and make something out of the life God gave them.

"My eyes raced over the ceiling of the subway car, and I imagined the icy river water that was running way up above us. The Harlem River divided Manhattan from the Bronx. And the D train ran in a tunnel from Manhattan to the Bronx, but I had never really thought too much about all that river water above my head. You didn't see the river, so you didn't think about it. New York City was surrounded by water that nobody ever thought about. I lived on an island, really. An island inside an island inside an island." Lolly does his best to stay bright but knows all about the darkness here.

The therapist at Lolly's school has the patience of Job and he does not just listen to Lolly but uses a method of tough love to bring Lolly out of the grief of the loss of his brother. He is ingenious about helping Lolly develop his own conditioned set of behaviors. This begins to lay a solid foundation for Lolly to base his daily routine on and form a better and more functional attitude toward himself which does after a time help Lolly to deal better with his circumstances and the world around him. Slowly but surely, Lolly accepts the things he cannot change and finds the courage to start a campaign on changing the things for himself for the better that he can for his future. A future that leaves the negativity of life such as drugs, alcohol and crime as just another set of casualties that have no other choice but to bite the dust. Also, Lolly learns about the giant diamond of choice. Because through those adults around him doing the best they know how to do what is right such as his home-schooled friend's grandmother-teacher known as Gram who gave him the delicious gift of the small precious poem book by Phillis Wheatley and his teachers at school and his therapist Lolly has had a training ground of albeit humble but the special brand of confidence that flows.

"Imagination who can sing thy force? Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?" Poem words by Wheatley his mantra now. Lolly has found that while not each person has the special gift of imagination that his therapist has certainly brought out the best forth for the teenager now on the road to begin the journey of learning the right mastery of it, but other realities of life being what life is seem much easier to cope with. Those other things being, such as the loss of his brother Jermaine and how his mother's partner supplied him with the Legos so necessary to his craft that brought grief later. And the consummate acceptance of the offer and the refusal of an offer from Tuttle's Toy Store by the owner of the store who had once applauded Lolly, had once thought to hire him there, although sad all factored to Lolly learning to adult.

The memories of his brother and the way his brother's behavior changed are beginning to sink down reasons as to why. And what is more, the haunting of his grief has begun to subside as he got busy with his own life. The rejection of his brother makes so much more sense now. And really does not bother him the way it once did. But the lessons he has learned from it and the mistakes he has already made help Lolly to determine to change his life for the better. "I don't want you coming around the barbershop," he told me. He waited a minute and seemed to be thinking about something. "I see your skinny on his jacket. I get sick of seeing you every day, man. We sleep in the same tiny room, eat in the same tiny kitchen, same tiny apartment. . . . I get tired of having you all up on me, all the time, Lolly." My eyes got wet. "I don't want you around," Jermaine said." He was gone for good soon after that.

One day his whole life changes for art for the better after he becomes a feature story for reporters because of his stylistic Lego developments. As his buildings are put outside for a special school celebration some reporters come by and he becomes the feature story. His art visits to other parts of the city open up possibilities. One day his travels merit an upscale adult artist who invites him to visit her floating park creation after he admires the small glass home she and her husband built atop a building both for daily life and inspiration and to house an art studio. "Sitting on top of this normal brick building, there was the most amazing glass . . . thing. It was mostly made of windows, all jagged like the sections of a gigantic jewel, with what looked like steel beams holding it all together. Somebody living in that thing I realized. They had built themselves a crystal house on top of an ordinary building." "Her eyes were the biggest I'd seen and she had long brown hair." She spoke with him so gentle.

The elderly couple began an inspiration for Lolly that only he as another artist understood. Changes and being on his own and the people around him who had disappointed him and those who supported him had helped him to understand now that support is mutual and not just one-sided. Lolly had begun and the moment came upon him about how very much that life is about others also. That cohabitation the God theme of the world means that the very definition of finite existence rests upon the ability to learn from others as well as from ourselves. "Live, work, love, make art," she said and smiled. It's my oasis. What do you think?" But now back at home and his own neighborhood stretched out before him later on, after enjoying a time on the floating park the female artist had made, he had a few big decisions to make. All of which meant choices. After all he reasoned, "Since then I had learned the most important thing. The decisions you make can become your life. Your choices are you."