The Happening of Magic

He hears them speak of this

crisis, and that. Hard men.

Unkempt. Brutal. Cynics. Bitter

lips, once bloodied and cracked by

harsh elements, suckling rum from

dark glasses, in the dark front room of

The Ferry House. Lamenting things lost,

forgotten and neglected. Things past.

You don't know the meaning of

loss, he thinks. He wants to take

one of them by the neck, and stand

him in front of the bar, and say

"Look in the mirror! There behind the

cornucopia of pleasures." There is no

amount of rum in a man that could

mask the terror, or stop the shivers.

What is the point, he thinks.

A drunken memory, as full as piss

as the bladder lads are. He could

headlock two of them, and drag them

outside, across the cobbles, and down the

draw dock and say, "Look in the water!'

There in the mercury swell, lit by the

Moon. And they would be very afraid.

But, no. He will suck the last of the

rum through clenched teeth and go home,

to the house of veils. Where every mirror

and window, every reflecting surface has

been covered or removed. The house where

light has come to a dead stop. The house

of the man with no reflection; a soul whose

luminescent threads have been undone.

And there is worse to come. More of him to

be undone. Two months ago, while walking in

the summer sun, his shadow disappeared, and

has not returned. He is shadowless, apart from

when he stands in front of the shadow tree.

In the flower garden trails, and the red deer park.

On the hill above The Ferry House, the draw dock,

and the house of veils.

"If you cut down the shadow tree, it will be

The end of me. Oh the end of me. Don't send

The hurricane, or the lightning flame. If you

Destroy the tree it will be the end of me.

Oh the end of me. Watch over the shadow tree,

For me, for me. Keep the sun in the sky and

The clouds away. Let us stand in the clearing,

me and my shadow, and the shadow tree."