MAGICAL REALISM

Every part of the land had curled in on itself.

An amnesia and a sinister sleep slumbered in its roots.

And then, what seemed like centuries later,

one day in March the gypsies came with their music,

their kettledrums and pipes,

and with their spectacular discoveries on display—

ice, magnets, and telescopes—

and their greatest invention of all, Wonder.

Only then did the jungle and the river

that ran through it wake.

Only then did the leaves sing and dance

in praise of their own venation and verdancy.

Only then did the rocks in the riverbed shine 

like quasars remembering the beginning of time.

This vitality was the reality, the magic, 
the land knew as itself. 

Alchemy was its oxygen.

And March was its memory.