Hi friends, for the next two weeks of episodes, the poet and writer Victoria Chang will be sharing

her selections and reflections.

I'll return on April 8th. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

As we drive past signs, advertising crystals, aura photos, and palm readings in Casa dega, Florida, psychic capital of the world.

My wife Diddy tells me about the time she visited a fortune teller.

I was desperate, she says.

After a frustrating session,

her therapist recommended a medium.

Against her skepticism, Diddy called her

from the parking lot. An hour later, she stood in a stranger's living room.

The medium announced that she didn't talk with the dead or hear voices. She only saw images.

After 10 minutes of empty visions, the medium apologized.

Yet, as Diddy walked out the door,

the medium landed on a very personal image,

one that brought both women to tears.

It can be difficult to believe anyone who professes an ability to see the future or beyond into the spirit world.

I think of my youth and the self-style prophets who stood on downtown street

corners proclaiming the end of the world.

Commuters walk briskly by them, but occasionally I stopped to listen as they screamed doom and damnation.

I fret it for us all.

The speaker in today's poem, taken from Greek mythology, has sight beyond the veil.

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