‘I must believe,’ he said.
I understood. ‘Yes,
because you have seen.’
He nodded. He was speaking
of the witches in his home village
in Karangasem, past the mountain.
His uncle was one of them.
Already I too believed,
though I didn’t know then
that I myself was a witch.
There were just these things I did,
these things that happened....
I think of that acceptance
now, in my own country,
where so many ignorantly think
witches are evil, magic is wrong.
In Bali the villagers knew
witches are healers, magic
like all things, is a gift from God.
November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2010: 20
Prompt: a ‘what’s wrong or right’ poem
This poem also appears in Sherry's Poets United feature: A Chat With Rosemary Nissen-Wade ~ On Poetry and Witchcraft.
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