It's a bag of cheap tricks – until
you try to pull one out yourself
and find it's more than work and will
and knowing the old ropes by heart.
Half of the time you spend groping
around in the dark. Any old
lark you lay hands on whilst coping
with that seems to long for the light.
You do, but does it? More often,
you sit there and nothing ascends.
The mirrors and sulphur and such
may come dear, don't always come off.
Too often, you have to go Dutch
with your muse to get by, but you do,
more or less, and so learn to lift
what can't fly, though it does. You
grow old in the art, if not wise.
(True magic is not just a gift.)
Leona Esther Medlin