Mary Hockenbery (reddirtrose)
cirque2
This used to be what passed for magic. Not the beautiful lady who who juggles with fire, though indeed there might be magic there. Nor do I mean the stilt walker, who perhaps is actually only an awkwardly tall guy, or a tall guy who embraced his endlessly bumped head by learning how to stilt walk too. I don’t mean the clowns, though there is doubtlessly dark magic in the way a clown steals innocence from a child’s laughter.
I remember the magic from years ago; my fingers are cold and stiff this morning, as they clack over this keyboard. I remember how the circus came each and every year, out nowhere and nothingness. I never saw it arrive. It came as the the conkers were falling from horse chestnut trees, and the ground was churning up to mud. It came with the scent of dead leaves and apples, it gave a fritz of electricity and popcorn. It came to common ground; the green where for centuries ordinary people had staked a claim to everyday matters, the common things, grazing livestock, trading hops, exercising dogs. It made nightfall come earlier, it made my cold breath a spooky mist, it made the circling trees a barricade that kept the mundane at bay.
Magic for two nights or maybe three, magic with fire and beauty, sequins and clowns. I never saw it leave, it was just gone, and left a looming winter.
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