"A Magic Show" by Brian Buckley

A Magic Show

The wizard's council spoke of things
Both grave and stern, and serious
Of sorcerers and coming storms
That might be deleterious
They spoke of matters yet to come
And battles lost in history
Of tomes whose pages few could read
Of ancient arcane mystery.

But once a year they put aside
Their musing and their pondering
Their veiled words and subtleties
And wide and wayward wandering
They opened up their gilded doors
And walked into the morning light
They raised their voices loud and clear
In all the gathered people's sight.

It was a show that they put on
To dazzle little children's eyes
And of adults, make children too
And tired souls, reenergize
For those who see in shades of gray
A color cornucopia
Celestial music for the deaf
For those oppressed, utopia.

This year five council members came
Each with a separate kind of skill
To make the ties of nature bind
To his or her own separate will
The first, a man of air and sky
The next, a lady of the flame
The third, a sorcerer of stone
A mage of water also came.

And last of all, a woman took
Her place beside the other four
Her power in the growth of life
Of vine and leaf-related lore;
And all five stood before the crowd
And hushed the din, as wizards can
A ringing gong, a silent pause
And with a cry, the show began.

A wind among the grasses stirred
Amid the clouds, a fitful breeze
A zephyr from the stirring sky
Sang gently through the tops of trees
The azure sky, the wispy clouds
Turned slowly gray in rising wrath
And overhead the firmament
Was drifting on a darker path.

The coming storm was lightning-lit
It broke with thunder on the plain
The clouds were monstrous in their size
And all the air was slashed with rain
The wind was an approaching wave
That crashed itself upon the hill
A whirlwind, a hurricane
It rose supreme - then all was still.

And in the peace the sun emerged
A quietly ascending flame
A thousand other fires lit
And rode behind it as it came
And all the flames became as one
And formed a phoenix in the sky
That spread its wings and swooped and dove
In glowing curves a mile high.

A vast inferno bloomed and grew
Its petals of the deepest red
Its roots not trapped within the earth
But reaching through the clouds instead
And rays of crimson from it grew
And all the crystal air was seared
A great carnation wrought from light
It stretched and burned - and disappeared.

The faintest tremors of the earth
Were felt beneath the people's feet
The stirrings of a restless ground
Like ripples in a silken sheet
The mountains shook atop their thrones
And thunder rolled within the rock
And scores of other peaks were split
Asunder in the aftershock.

And boulders flew like steaming dust
And traced their paths in spinning lines
An upward-flowing avalanche
That lashed the slopes with granite vines
The hills around them rose and fell
Like waves within the tossing sea
They ripped themselves in rocky cliffs -
Then sank into tranquility.

The waters of the sea were deep
And foamed upon the sandy shore
As they had done for ages past
As they would do forevermore
The steady ebb and flow of tides
Sent waves of blue and waves of green
And gradually the water swelled
And formed a smooth aquatic sheen.

A whirlpool began to form
And swept the ocean's currents in
To form a spiral of the sea
Where previously waves had been
And tendrils of the deep rose up
To flow above the maelstrom
They twisted into helices
Of liquid glass - then all was calm.

Beside the gently lapping shore
A boulder of obsidian
Set loose upon its blackened face
A carpet of viridian
And out of this there slowly came
A tiny sapling, slim and gray
That opened up its budding leaves
To touch the golden light of day.

The sun came down to kiss its cheek
The raindrops wet its swaying hair
And tall it grew upon the rock
To bathe beside the water there
And crowned at last in brilliant green
It stood above the other trees
In majesty beneath the sky -
And all was still and quiet peace.

Then overhead a thundercloud
Gave darkness form celestial
While down below the angry earth
Set loose its rage terrestrial
The forest in its ecstasy
Was blanketed in evergreen
To complement the blazing sky
That swept itself incarnadine!

The ocean woke! How great the sound!
How thunderous its screaming force!
Untarnished was its diadem!
Unstoppable its mighty course!
The wind was beaten violently
Against the broken stony sand
And numberless the fires lit
The forested immortal land!

In weeks to come, the people said
With memory paled into gray
"The show was quite extravagant
But really just another day
It seemed to make the children smile
A rather quaint, amusing sight,"
They said that then, but at the time
There was but wonder and delight.