ANY GIVEN MAGIC (Carolyn Lau workshop)

ANY GIVEN MAGIC

Living in present time

This lump of earth 

makes fine red marks 

on the cave walls.

This one makes the colors 

of spring pine pollen.

This burned wood works best 

if it is burned slowly.

These marks here represent teeth.

This is for the sun.

See how it follows the arc of the moon?

And that northstar 

brightens every fourth day. 

This window overlooks utter blackness

Stars, such infinite wanderers, 

yet fixed in their orbits.

You can see the blur of distant novae 

there in the center of the night sky 

No, it's not your eyes 

blurring in the coldness.

I have taken photos of the moon 

under the eclipse.

It sheds its skin like a molting snake.

Sometimes it's red, sometimes blue.

Did you know that the rainbow 

lives in snakes' eyes?

Color that bison in more 

now, add black. 

Given magic

This cold eats our bowlines, 

this hearth fire, a place to sleep

This afterglow, 

this dying ember of the earth. 

1/16/1986

From Carolyn Lau's dance poetry workshop 

CAC workshop, I worked with Luisa Tish

imagine yourself being in two worlds, the past and the present, or the present at the future, at the same time. Use rhythm, music, imagination, plan to sing one line in the class.