Rebecca Drouilhet

How I Learned Magic

I suppose I could tell you that my grandmother taught me. No, we weren't a family of witches. And yet, we knew the art of conjuring something special using only the tools at hand.

Each autumn my grandmother and her daughter Mary, both widows, would make a pilgrimage. They'd discuss the trip for days in advance, carefully plan a sumptuous picnic, and then drive to the one tree in their patch of Mississippi that actually changed color in the fall. They'd dine and laugh and celebrate life in all its splendor. Each picnic was an event to be relished the whole year through and, in fact, for years to come.

another autumn
casts its spell on me...
I plant
a Japanese maple
beneath the witching moon