Musings of a Fortune Teller, by Alexandra Seidel
![I, Sailko [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.polutexni.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Gruuthuse_tarocchi_del_xviii_sec.jpg)
I, Sailko [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Don’t you think sometimes
that you got the world weighing down on your shoulders
or that your brightest day
is a little dark?
Don’t let cards or crystal ball get to you like that,
it’s just the fortune tellers’ curse;
learn to live
with the bearblood mark.
Fortune Teller
Sometimes my cards hold water like buckets
left out in the rain,
sometimes I feel their edges singe;
a glass ball is a strange thing,
shards beneath my feet, made whole.
The Tarot Deck
we are not just paint and cardboard, says The Hanged Man
but you’ll have to know us good to know, says The Priestess
Swords chatter their blades, not sure why people would read cards
and The Devil and The Fool sit smiling, back to back.
Old Seer
Before we had words on paper,
we had robes dyed bearblood dark;
people knew what we could do,
and so did we.
Glass Orb
Sometimes, I’d rather be the moon than this,
always clear so she can see through me.
Nobody asks the moon to be glass
and nobody asked me whether I wanted to be just
her crystal ball
The Green Candle
It is funny to watch her pick the truth apart
so she can make a proper fortune of it.
Sometimes, she works true magic, and that’s a different thing;
I’ve never burned so hot
as when there’s magic in my flames.
Fortune Teller
Sometimes I wish I could hide in a bearskin,
the bear’s claws and the bear’s teeth my own.
Why do people come asking for the truth
when it’s the last thing that they want to hear?
Old Seer
Remember that the moon is dark and wild
or starlight bright, yet no more tame.
We are of the moon you and I,
and a grain of moondust is wild in all of us.
Petitioner
I have brought boughs of oak, white ash, and last year’s sage,
incense and a few coins…
I have so many questions!
What say the cards? What is my fortune?
Old Seer
See, when we wore the bearblood robes
all they’d ask us for were proper questions.
These days…
well, you know yourself.
Just make it up
as you go along.
Fortune Teller
I’ll shuffle, and you cut the cards.
Now let’s see what’s in the cards for you:
they are like rivers full of rain
but don’t you worry about that…
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