Astrolabe


Now it is thoroughly washed with tears, I can clearly see how I prefer to go into the
mirror’s friendly space, than out through window panes and doors of glass. In the mirror
the wait disperses like leaves in a storm. In the mercurial, silvered light, the garden is
green again. Xochipilli echoes. Xochiquetzal answers with fragrance. The heart’s blood
is a rose in spring.

There is a land beneath the earth where we also meet, and many others besides,
metaphorically existing. These other places communicate with us through the surfaces
of the world, such as the glass bottom of a tankard (indisputably, the quality of the glass
is the content). Souls touch and merge and we all share the same life, but so often our happiness is
only experienced in camera obscura – and only shadows are spoken of, and lost on
some nights, when the clouds are very heavy. But when Calypso escapes her name
and comes dancing through whitened walls, she brings the light box for you; a chalice,
made of the sands of the seas of all time. It convulses out of itself, forming into a sphere
around a stem of crystal with a marrow of fire.

And the trees are purple-black this time of year. Deep under hedges, they are kept
warm by the maligned spirits of Helios. Their roots, in the good darkness, embrace
precious stones and ancestral skulls. Winds whirl, and citadels in the air begin to
shudder and quake. The thunder rolls, and turrets rise with lightening tails and go
rocketing off to the stars. Some say they are so minute, or so far away, that you need a
magnifying glass or a telescope to observe this phenomenon.

The mermaid looks into the face of the moon, the mother of all mirrors, who draws them
all gently to herself and sends them in chuckling waves around the world. The mermaid
combs her hair with sea shells and lets the warm wind clothe her - for warmth is clothing
enough - and she brings you good luck if you hear her voice, as you travel in your dark
ships over the brilliant ocean. And if you are lucky you will see her.