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      August 5, 2021Amor HalperinIt Is Magic

      It is magic
      sorcery,
      spells,
      science fiction
      whatever
      one wants
      to call it,
      the truth is
      that there are
      incomprehensible
      situations:
      for instance
      this small universe
      which is
      the brain
      is a mystery
      for many people.

      When I was a child
      I thought
      that the brain
      was an amorphous mass
      specially
      when my mother prepared
      brains in vinaigrette
      a gourmet dish,
      but for a ten-year-old child
      quite distasteful.

      Lately I have
      more respect
      for the brain
      after what I went through
      during ten months
      of anguish
      for my family
      and me.

      In a few words
      I will tell you
      that an interloper
      was damaging
      one of my nerves
      the acoustical nerve
      the intruder
      was growing
      by dint of my brains
      he wanted me
      not to hear
      the beautiful sounds
      of this world
      nor the coarse
      words
      that we hear
      frequently.

      Well,
      then somebody decided
      to deal
      with the uninvited
      visitor
      and what better way
      than to give him
      a medicine,
      the Star Wars’ way:
      they deal
      with their enemies
      with a Zap! Zap!
      and make them disappear
      from the site,
      forever.

      That’s why I say
      in my case
      a magician
      manipulating
      a bundle of rays
      bombarded
      the intruder
      to destroy him
      and now that
      I am breathing
      more easily
      I think
      that in my horoscope
      my sign
      Gemini
      said to the one
      that follows it
      Cancer
      “Don’t you dare enter
      in my dominion!”

      Happily
      this ends this story
      of intruders
      and science fiction
      and I am getting ready
      for the new millennium,
      that will come
      with more surprises
      than one
      can foresee.

      translated from Spanish by Ida Halperin

      from Issue #12 - Winter 1999

      Amor Halperin

      “For many years I worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab, in the unmanned space program. All our endeavors were and are still to reach other planets and expand the knowledge of the universe. The beauty of these faraway worlds where man tries to find, if not the origins of our species, at least another civilization, can best be described as the highest form of literature: Poetry. I say let us go beyond our petty wars and build a world where our children will become adults. My hope is that one day man’s inhumanity to man will be a thing of the past.”

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