Timing a Card Reading

Poetry

Photo by dilara irem sancar on Unsplash

Timing a Reading

For a while I switched from tarot
to playing cards.
Just regular old cards.
No pretty pictures.
No Colman-Smith.
No abstract art.
No rainbow colors.
Just numbers and suit,
black and red,
blood and ash,
energy and associations.

And associations are easy
with ordinary cards.
Spades are winter,
spades are dark.
The Queen, the twelfth card
of her suit,
a winter queen,
a waning year.
This is how you time a reading.
And I timed every reading out
to December,
to myself,
to that sharp and solitary queen.

Today is a turning point in time.
The air is cold and the wind is strong.
And air is winter.
Air is spirit
and, if you're lucky, inspiration,
new ideas and looking inward.
And I have been luckier in this regard
than in others.

It is a new month and a new year.
The yard is a monochrome of snow
and dormant garden.
There are crows calling from the trees
loud and free and wild.
And the sky beyond the branches
isn't gray or silver
but really surprisingly blue.
Blue enough to get my attention.
Blue enough to anchor me
to this scene, this spot, this lonely season.

So I stand outside until my feet are cold
and I think that this is probably
where all the symbols point.
Not where you've been,
not where you're going
but the absolute magnitude
of where you are.

Today I know exactly
where that is.

Today is Sunday,
early January.
Today is number one of seven.
Today is number one of twelve.
And one is creation and renewal.
One is power under pressure.
One is stepping out and starting over,
and one is the breath we take
before we leap.

---

I wrote this poem on January 1st, 2017. I was still reading cards professionally then and spent a lot of time making guesses about the future. I stopped reading later that year, and when I picked it up again I saw it differently.

You can read some of my other poems here: https://barbaragraver.substack.com/t/poetry