Tarot of my Sadness

Luisa A. Igloria

Dec 2

I pick leaves to make into books—my zamisdat, my kind of dissident printing in a time when algorithms dictate so many human interactions. If I click on an ad for a yellow raincoat, my feed gets flooded with a hundred more. I don't want to buy, I'm only browsing. But what did I look at that led to shims and xanthan gum? Just like with free association, one action triggers a cascade. That's how the chains of commerce are toggled these days. Waxed linen passes through a needle for binding paper into folios—doing things like this with my hands sometimes helps quiet the hurt and vacant hours, when all my heart can think of is the daughter who has elected to cut off ties. Out walking, I think I see the word undo like a subheading to every sign and I'm plunged into a fevered desolation. At winter's start, what leaves haven't completely turned brittle seem almost to mock me. You know the ones with tenacious grip, still waving their flag of I-am-still-here. I admire how oddly secure they look despite their evident fate. If I pulled a tarot card, would I hold the right emblem for what comes next? The Star, nocturnal traveler, raises the question of the unreachable. But Temperance, angel with one foot in the water, teaches the patience of passing time. Fortune's a quizmaster and never gives a perfect score, no matter how many retakes. The joyous Fool is perhaps the one I should make my standard bearer, singing paeans to the sky while she teeters at the edge of a cliff. How does one keep such faith in a world where cold rebuke comes from the closest kin? O solemn owl and common grackle, o ruby-crowned kinglet and yodeling loon. Inkberry and persimmon, cypress and bristlecone pine, I know I am no longer young. Keep me intact in the agonies of tenderness and too much.