Caught Up In Magic Poem by Frank Bana

You do believe in magic
You can see the eyes that watch my sleep
The spirits that would suffocate or shine
The priest issuing from his hilltop shrine
Predictions and calls that bind my actions
Forces that navigate my warring factions
Unmasking the face of my tormentors
As I cradle deep in your incantations

You say you believe in magic
I have no reason to disbelieve
And every inclination to surrender
To spells of entreaty you cast for splendour
On worn stones that make me curious
As I sit at my healer's feet
Paying him to banish deceipt
And to summon my reluctant energy

Because you are my magic
When I am bewitched, walking tightropes in my sleep
You are my architect of confidence
The amulets you bring for me to keep
In the presence of demons and accidents
Haunt me, but cannot spell defeat

I think of pain as magic
The torture weighing on our lives, suspended
Like bodies hung from ceiling rings
The load of being human, learning on this trek
That awareness is not wisdom
Fear is not unending
And the faces of angels
Do not always yield escape

I think of light as magic
And everything you show me, of who you were at birth
And all we tell each other, as ritual, repeated
Is for this light, for visions, in steady ancient eyes
That nearly blind, their images resolve
Within the heart that softens, lets us fall
Back into silence, in our depths transformed
Forgetting who we were, of only one thing sure
In the presence of this magic, whether in dark or light
Our fates remain connected and entwined.