Augury
A good friend recently said to me, “at least there is a chance that the president will put a stop to the ‘politics as usual’ that is no longer working for us.” That is not the first time I’ve heard a similar statement of hope/faith/superstition. This non sequitur is offered dead pan, or with a wry smile. What could anyone conceivably say in response? What are the chances that a person so profoundly ignorant, so insecure, so narcissistic is going to “pull the rabbit out of the hat?” Slim and none.
I received this fine composition the other day from the POEM A DAY service. It is a sardonic observation on the nature of human intelligence. Note the poets statement at the end.
TAROT READINGS DAILY
BY JOY LADIN
They’re reading Tarot cards right now,
in the little pink house with the sign in the yard.
Shadows spider across still-green lawn
whose fate, so far, defies the frosts.Someone asks the right question,
draws the right card.
Many cups in the immediate future;
radiance pouring down.They know the future,
the creatures in the yard:
night, thirst, frost.
Only the sapiens in the house believefire, water, air, and earth
would bother to reveal
when to fear and love.
The one who’s payingdraws another card.
Outside, in the yard,
a squirrel noses seed that fell
like radiance, from above.
“This poem grew out of years of driving past a sign that said ‘Tarot Readings Daily.’ Snow or heat, New England gloom (Dickinson and Frost weather) or Technicolor-blue skies, the sign testified to the human hunger to know the future. One day in late autumn, I noticed a squirrel pausing beneath the sign and realized she knew all she needed to know.”
—Joy Ladin
