Signs and Portents

I will not lie

this is a strange time

of visitations and messengers

and I have lived

through times like this before 

always to my betterment

this must be 

the interval of unexpected gifts

that the Tarot cards

were telling me about.

I want to look ahead 

to pre-visualize the future

and build up a catalog of visions

so that at any moment

I can reach into the deck

and find inspiration

after all there may be 

other spans of darkness

when I am cut off from the river’s source

and I’ll need a way to fight it. 

The cards I make

will be a stack of spells

pre-illuminated

that only need the touch 

of a match 

to flare up into magic 

and that is how I’m going to prepare 

for a dark future

peopled by fiends and troubles. 

I’ll also make jewelry

that is filled with light

and needs merely to 

lie against the skin

in order to glow with radiance

I know that I’ll need 

many kinds of power

if I am going to drag the path of dreams

through from the forest of the fae

into this city

that each of us may benefit.