The Tarot Tells

By candle light

We sit by together

Reading in the night

Our round stone table

And my poor students

Watch me quietly

Listen quite intently

As I turn the cards

One by one they pick

And read the signs

That speak of great loss

And someone's near death

And happy fortune

Lost love and found hope

A sun child at play

A flower maiden's mirth

A dark bejeweled king

Restless on the thrown

And a tower thrown down

The world tumbles in words

Hung upon a Celtic cross

Upside down they speak

It matters not what

The direction that turns

Their incredulous eyes

As I wish these cards

Were like wings to fly

Far from this foreign place

Across the ocean

To a childhood I lost

The students hide their eyes

They deny the truth

Admit openly

Never, not ever

Upon a communist faith

But in secret glances

Their eyes watery reveal

A desperation of want

A heart full of desire

An imagination on fire

And their voices break

With sudden utterances

The darkness of the night

Surrounding the crowded place

Means little any longer

In the flickering

Of the bright flame

In the waxy night air

Gazes fixed in trance

Upon my strange cards

The Great Wall Revisited

Trails in the Snow

1991-1993