Belief in Magic

The other night I woke at 1:30, read until 3:30 and then went back to sleep.  It was amazing, as it always is, to be up and feel like time belongs entirely to me.  I can’t plan that–it just happens when it happens, a sort of gift from my body, however inconvenient.  

I have to believe in magic, because babies. Because I’ve seen myself born and reborn, have fallen in love, have watched the sun rise while drinking a cup of coffee. I have been granted exactly the thing I need at exactly the moment I need it, like this poem, Belief in Magic by Dean Young, who I love so much I wished he was a relative when I read (and re-read, and re-read) The Art of Recklessness–flagged it up, wrote notes in the margins, marked passages.  So your prompt is to read this poem and list the evidence you’ve gathered on magic.

Belief in Magic

Dean Young

How could I not?
Have seen a man walk up to a piano
and both survive.
Have turned the exterminator away.
Seen lipstick on a wine glass not shatter the wine.
Seen rainbows in puddles.
Been recognized by stray dogs.
I believe reality is approximately 65% if.
All rivers are full of sky.
Waterfalls are in the mind.
We all come from slime.
Even alpacas.
I believe we’re surrounded by crystals.
Not just Alexander Vvedensky.
Maybe dysentery, maybe a guard’s bullet did him in.
Nonetheless.
Nevertheless
I believe there are many kingdoms left.
The Declaration of Independence was written with a feather.
A single gem has throbbed in my chest my whole life
even though
even though this is my second heart.
Because the first failed,
such was its opportunity.
Was cut out in pieces and incinerated.
I asked.
And so was denied the chance to regard my own heart
in a jar.
Strange tangled imp.
Wee sleekit in red brambles.
You know what it feels like to hold
a burning piece of paper, maybe even
trying to read it as the flames get close
to your fingers until all you’re holding
is a curl of ash by its white ear tip
yet the words still hover in the air?
That’s how I feel now.