I remember the time I was at Disneyland with my beloved.
We were just a year into our love and everything was magic.
So when the voiceover came on in the park and said
anything’s possible, if you believe, I believed.
And then, as if to confirm my conviction, the sky exploded
as it does every night in that place, which is holy to anyone
who has fended off adult cynicism as long as I have.
So it’s not hard to believe the stories of the prophet
Elisha, holy man with a woman’s name, (we were the first
line crossers…) who gave a poor woman so much oil
she started a fossil fuel company and lived comfortably
on the profits all her days. Or the story of the woman
as old as our mother Sarah, who also had a child when
Elisha made a special arrangement with the original
Walt Disney on high. Or later how that child took to death
after a headache, but was immediately revived when
the prophet’s mouth was put on his. It may have been the first
mouth to mouth resuscitation but the implication is divine magic.
I don’t think I laughed like Sarah when I was told a child
was on the way. In fact it was one of the only speechless
moments of my life. But I see the miracles every day.
Something made from nothing, food purchased from
the sale of art, and the astonishment that breath continues
to come in and out of my lungs no matter what I do.
I believe in magic and I’m always ready for
the sky to explode.
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 21 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Donut Famine” (Rothco Press, December 2016) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
