The Magus

The pearls, mere reminders. The ocean’s rapid recoil, a signal. The gulls appeared enormous in that way only things from above can— such is presentation of the sudden. If only this were worthy of a frame, the wooden gesture announcing a moment past were cherished. But it was too late for that, too late to answer the surf’s anxious Why? too late to decline the continuous life he had resigned himself, turning away from the grave, that plot being too familiar to so many. Of course immortality had its price: first his staff he had taped back together, then the sleeves of his robe he had reclaimed from the depths, then the magic leached nightly from his fingertips so that now his incantation for a storm brought only a slight breeze, a quick sun shower that frightened only the flowers struggling in the salt air. Now, showing his centuries, he insists: This is the wind out of which I bring clouds. These are my hands that gnarled though they be when lifted to the sky bring rain