A poem a day in April from Rutgers English PhD students and friends.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Spell for Rebirth

Two masses a week minimum
one in school one on Sundays
when we were finally no longer
dragged the elders still warned
we might be back someday with
our families / well it's someday-
Sunday and I'm only ever more
a witch since the day I eloquently
argued my way out of that L-
shaped school (might as well have
been one room) using reason like
magic the spell of laying out one's
case the master's tools the master
key but I only wanted out              

For years I thought I'd lost them like
in some fairy-tale bargain
where I was allowed to go on living
but in reason's blinding world

Then I knew I could get them back

   take five balls of colored yarn
   name an ingrained belief as you unwind
   make a web
   describe the entanglements
   cut what you need to
   elsewhere make knots & bows

Not the return the elders imagined
doesn't take me to church
or castle or Vale of Enna
but drops me far afield

I kept ritual and incense
Syncretic           Heretic
How did you get born again?

The ones who did the witch hunts
centuries later taught me to believe
in miracles

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