The Mirror Ascent

Author’s Note

This poem inhabits the space between summoning and sight, where the heavens answer, and what unfolds is at once beautiful, intimate, and profoundly unsettling.

As larva started to bubble up from beneath the earth’s core,

they knew it was time.

Incense was burnt

and the flute played

this was how we invited them in.

We were the vehicle on which they rode,

the conveyors.

One by one they proceeded down from the sky

chariots and whirlwind.

It was a beholding fit only

for those at peace with their senses.

I see them now in clothes of gilded fire.

The air changed- it was of ashes, spring, and rain.

We gathered outside on a field,

each one by the name they had chosen to call their house.

Those without houses borrowed many a name.

With our eyes lifted to the sky, we watched

the procession of the beings myth dared to speak of.

I could feel an unfurling in my stomach

deep calling unto deep,

and a path sprinkled with honey that sparkles.

They came even closer,

their eyes fiery and hair likened to first-fallen snow.

Never have I seen a more beautiful sight.

We lifted our hands high across our heads,

with hope in our hearts that we might be chosen

their robes billowing like the desert sun.

And then… I felt a tug.

Like a weightless dainty, I was lifted off the ground.

I could not scream for fear I would get fire in my nostrils.

In the chariot then I stood

flung across his back I was.

We sailed across the clouds and then reversed direction.

And then I saw

a sight that left my soul in bewildered frenzy:

my face… on the back of his robe.

He looked sideways at me

and smirked.

The clouds opened.

— Laurel