The Magic Is Real
Poetry

Sometimes the real world demands practicality, bits of dust to pick up, countertops to slop with Lysol clothes to fold and baby to hold,
but I know that magic is real in all this — if I look.
If I look at the jacarandas purpling outside and sit for a minute let the wind whisper into me, the magic reveals itself if I listen to birds, the right words always come —
this is magic. If I get my kid to giggle, if I let her explain how fire dragons work, if I tape together her cut shapes, smile at her “winner winner, chicken dinner” cries— if she sighs,
sniffles, stops, then says “I love you, Mommy” and “This is the best day ever!” — I know the magic is real. Her sweet face curled up next to mine. How only I
can assuage her nightmares. Magic: in the way my students learn and interact, and oh, how I miss that. Magic: when they realize a truth within themselves, when they take a blank canvas
and obliterate it with their passions, when they go Jackson Pollack on it, when they discover their blues and reds don’t have to be perfect — that the process IS the magic, that letting go is OK, that creation is all
we have sometimes — I want to stop, hug them, tell them they are magic all in themselves, and how do I preserve that? I take them out one by one like fireflies from a jar, tell them that this nighttime sky isn’t cruel
in its mystery, that it’s OK to glow, to brighten up the parts of the world they can.
