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Turning into the Wind

M.C. Rydel

For Paulo

Chicago in the winter has calm days,
Sunny and mild, 32 degrees Fahrenheit,
Calm, the trees barely moving, yet noticeable.
The wind, when you’re working windward, lets you zigzag
And get where you’re going despite the chill.

The city is home to a school for alchemists:
Intro to Stones, Exploring Elixirs,
Just two of the courses in a comprehensive curriculum,
Including sailing and track for physical fitness,
Meteorology and Curses, possible electives.

There’s going to be a call for gold, soon.
The school’s recruiting and raising tuition.
Its ad campaign makes emerald tablets into posters
Hanging on the sides of buses and inside elevated trains
And challenges everybody to turn into the wind.

A few clever students figure it out, though.
They molt and shed and transform into breezes,
Reappear months later, southerly in springtime,
Straight from the west on the Fourth of July,
And they travel into the future,

As if waking from an induced sleep
Like an intruder in somebody else’s dreams.
That’s how they get there, knowing where
They’ve buried the gold, knowing its worth
Ten times more than when they made it.

They get to live years longer than the norm.
Alchemists rarely retire. Why would they?
They hop through centuries ahead of the rest of us:
Epitaphs on stelae like ten minute video tapes,
The best ones taken, when they don’t know the camera’s on.

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