I was born with the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair.

Everywhere I looked, I felt the beauty of creation

And the hurt we bring to it.

Autumn’s tradition perplexed me as I strove to find

Why the trees cast off their abundant green gowns into showers of red and gold

In return for winter’s careless mantle of snow on their bony frames.

I sat in silence by the seashore,

Wondering how the sea could love the moon enough

To follow its course forever in the tides.

On summer evenings,

In the hot, heavy air scented with citronella,

I darted through my backyard

Playing hide-and-seek with the fireflies.

I am a song-singer,

A tree-climber,

A star-gazer,

A love-bringer,

A wonder-child. 

— 

You were born breathing fairy tales.

In your eyes, a butter knife held the metal of Excalibur,

A dark, musty wardrobe was a gateway to Narnia,

And all the burrows and hollows in the flower beds were hobbit holes.

You saw battles fought in windless, empty fields

When you were supposed to be doing your schoolwork.

You felt for mystic runes in the tree bark

And listened for the barn cat to speak its greetings to you.

Crafting the stories given birth within your mind,

You find bits and fragments of truth

And paste them into an ink-drawn mosaic.

As I read your stories,

You transform the deepest intimacies of the human heart

So I can understand myself.

I did not grow up like you.

My world of pretend stayed pretend,

Because real was real,

And pretend was not.

But now, between the bindings of your book,

I can pretend, really pretend,

And I like it.

This I know:

You are capable of wonders—

Even magic.

You are a story-breather

A tale-spinner,

A people-speaker,

A mind-reader,

A magic-wielder. 

—

Lulled to sleepiness by the murmuring fir trees

Whose boughs frame the freckled sky,

I lie on their pungent needles,

My gaze paying homage to the moon.

My mind is not in Middle Earth or Narnia

But in my world,

Where the magic infuses nature and ourselves.

There is enough evidence of it in a single page of our writing.

Yet we dismiss it,

We redefine it,

We call it by other names,

Because it can be understood in our world.

But I say that our magic is the most powerful of all

Because it can be understood.

Our Creator gave us more than enough

To give life to our imaginations

And inspire our wonder.

I see the sad eyes behind your courageous smile,

Because the honesty leaves an aching bruise.

The raw and fierce are louder than the hope and joy,

And the throb in your ears overpowers the whisper you know.

You wander aimlessly on the cold, barren streets of writer’s block,

And nothing comes out on paper the way you want it to.

I read that tale of hardship,

And the tear that falls is for your hurting heart.

So when the sun blushes over the mountains,

My warm hand interlaces your graphite-smudged fingers

Over the broken fence and through the dew-strewn grass.

I see the dimples in your cheeks deepen,

And in the hush and birdsong,

Our whispers and laughs can be heard.

For a while, I see the world as you know it,

And you feel the wonder as I do.

After your soul can breathe again,

You close your eyes

And lie down in the silence beneath the fir trees,

And when I hear your soft sigh,

I slip back through the woods,

For I have a story to finish.

This is magic.