Augurations

 Auguration
  
 Allegedly, spring will come again. 
 January’s collusion with the Russians
 remains unverified. Sources cannot confirm
 that although the horizon’s padded shoulder
 blocks the sun, it is gathering intelligence
 and will dawn at the appropriate time.
 Citizens hunker in the patchy snow
 and wonder. Is whiteness receding?
 What does it mean, that pink rumor
 glittering out east, amid stolid cloud?
 Is this repeating complaint a bird?
 Anonymous bulbs are reported to wait
 just under the crust of disrespected earth,
 devouring their survivor’s cache of rations,
 strategizing for a green surprise. Be alert,
 comrades, if not exactly hopeful, yet.  

I drafted “Auguration” in 2017 and never published it, so I thought this might be a good week to share it. I submitted it to many magazines, and I’m still not sure why no editor took it–except for the perennial reason that slush piles contain too many poems and the competition is ridiculous. It’s an outtake from The State She’s In, omitted because it’s similar to other poems in the book. Maybe leaving it out was the wrong call. The cards are hard to read, sometimes.

I’ve been messing around with a new tarot deck for the sheer calming pleasure of it; producing readings is contemplative and a little like solving a puzzle, trying to understand flows of possible meanings. I don’t claim they have purchase on facts or the future, although I believe that in the hands of an intuitive person they lead, at least, to useful introspection. Lots of poets use them, it turns out. Here‘s an interesting conversation about poetry and Tarot with Airea D. Matthews and Hoa Nguyen led by Trevor Ketner. Matthews calls tarot as “a tool for healing and revealing and critical thinking,” and Nguyen links poetry and tarot through the way they cultivate receptivity and invite otherness into our thinking. I can say personally that since I unboxed these cards, I’m writing poetry again.

I just pulled the three cards below while wondering about the inauguration. Interestingly, in the interview cited above, Nguyen pulled the six of swords just prior to the last inauguration–although below it’s reversed, which changes its significance. My interpretations are only based on brief study, but it suggests a state of transition, perhaps loss; the woman and child being poled away, perhaps against their will, remind me of the trauma of migration. The image also evokes painful baggage carried over from the Trump administration. (I wish the man terrible consequences for his crimes–even as I want the country to move on speedily to address the damage). The first card, the ace of cups, signifies auspicious beginnings and calls for generosity. The Queen of Wands, well, she’s a bold, charismatic, vital woman leader surrounded by symbols of courage and coming back to life. Sounds good to me.

I’m sure my current fascination with tarot is ALSO rooted in frustration about the radical unknowability of the near future; I hear psychics have done good business by phone and Zoom this year. May this week be the beginning of better things for everybody, even if you’re not exactly hopeful yet. And may the youngest inaugural poet ever, Amanda Gorman, blow all of us out of the water!