Abracadabra Tarot: DOONIYA RANGEEN HAI - What Color is the Scarf of Your Days?

Fortress behind the Chai

The World is Colorful

The first words he taught her

in Hindi--dooniya rangeen hai.

The world is colorful.

She thinks sunrise, split open

like a pomegranate. Or the moon

a gnawed cashew.

Live and be devoured.

She thinks of peacocks--

feathers spread before monsoon rains,

of tigers striped in fire.

Of his fingers, brown,

against her white cheek.

And what color, she wonders,

are secrets, those cities

we bottle up in our chests?

What color is that scarf of days

ahead that we will pull like magicians

out of a hat?

Mary McCormack

The Days of Blue

Grey-blue morning, smokey clouds smudging the roof tiles.

Sky like a big ole lavender bruise.

Caw caw caw calls a worthy crow from behind the 12th c. eglise.

A mosquito lounges on my knee.

Hard rain last night: "horage" predicted my favorite tobacco-stained

farmer from behind his Gaulloises.

The days darken. It is a cyclical time of transition. We are crossing another seasonal threshhold. Pascal said in difficult times you should always keep something beautiful in your heart. Invoke the light.

Plums (Quetsch) in the orchard

The sumptuous purple plums fell like robin's eggs from the nest into our hands. We'll make wine & jam; trap some sunlight in bottles and jars. In times of darkness, it's good to stay close to one simple thing in nature.

Quetsch Plums (Prunes)

I'm sure there are more days of bounding light and a furnace full of Indian summer heat ahead, but we've had a hint of cold and dark already this week; the "corn man" is starting to shiver, paper wasps buzzing & birthing new generations in our armoire. The dogs down the hill howling--we'll have to play them a Hungarian Rhapsody or throw them a juicy bavette with peppercorn sauce.

Reading for Fiona

The last Tarot readings for the season at the stone table

The last concert for the season at the Cistercian Abbaye de Boschaud. Gorgeous Russian soprano and two incredible guitarists, Spanish & French. I was intrigued by the woman sitting across from me, she looked Basque, such a story in her eyes...
.

Phillipe Villa & Elena Korchuganova

Day of Grief

I was forcing a wasp to the top of a window
where there was some sky and there were tiger lilies
outside just to love him or maybe only
simply a kiss for he was hurrying home
to fight a broom and I was trying to open
a door with one hand while the other was swinging
tomatoes, and you could even smell the corn
for corn travels by wind and there was the first
hint of cold and dark though it was nothing
compared to what would come, and someone should mark
the day, I think it was August 20th, and
that should be the day of grief for grief
begins then and the corn man starts to shiver
and crows too and dogs who hate the wind
though grief would come later and it was a relief
to know I wasn’t alone, but be as it may,
since it was cold and dark I found myself singing
the brilliant love songs of my other religion.

—Gerald Stern

Last of the Sunflowers

I'm headed to Paris to see a Hanged Man about a rope. I will be staying in the Marais in the 4th arr. If you are in Paris and would like to book a reading, I have two openings left on September 20, 21 - contact: ramartin8@gmail.com