I. The Invocation

I hear you calling
every morning in your prayers before sleep.

At night, you pour drinks in a rainbow-hued club and everyone loves you.
At daylight, you die of loneliness and lack of purpose inside your walls.

But while the sun shines I visit your fragile dreams,
bringing visions of what could be.

Like with Danae,
slowly revealing myself out of showers of golden dreamlight.

Your devotion intensifies
until each drink you pour becomes a libation.

II. The Descent

One night when the stars are aligned
I descend to you in the flesh.

Arriving in time with booming low bass and the dazzling lightning of strobe lights,
I am a muscular outline haloed in light.

You tentatively whisper my name.
It is swept away in the music and laughter,
but fear not. I always hear when you call me.

I approach — “You’ve summoned me into existence. All will be as I have shown you.”
I hold out a glass — “Will you fill my cup?”

You quickly grab a bottle, pour,
but in the glass that is a chalice, mundane alcohol transforms, thickens,
becomes ambrosia shimmering with power.

Like water into wine, like straw into gold.
Like alcohol into ambrosia, like human into god.

I offer the cup and as soon as your lips touch the curving rim,
You are mine and I am yours.

III. The Ascent

We exit into a rainy grey morning.
My motorcycle parked at the curb,
the eagle on its tank glistening with rain and magic.

I throw my leg over
but you hesitate to follow, a rabbit trembling under the gaze of an eagle.
You are afraid I will evaporate like dream-mist in this dawn light.

But you climb behind,
destiny decided and wrap your arms around me.
All your dreams becoming solid.

We ride fast,
engine rumbling like thunder through our bones
until the mundane world rushes away in a storm of light.

The painted eagle morphs to real
and we soar away to the heavens,
to Olympus.

IV. The Constellation

Let me show you what you mean to me, beloved,
you who are handsome lover
and cup-bearer of the gods.

I pluck lightning from the aether,
condense it between my hands
until it becomes a tiny red hot spark of creation.

Release it with a sacred Word
and it flies into the firmament —
explodes and a new constellation of stars comes into existence.

Humans will call it Aquarius, the Cup-Bearer.
These shinning stars
will forever be a symbol of our undying love.

[Andrea Gustafson is an acupuncturist, herbalist, and poet from Illinois.  This is her first published work.  She’s been Pagan for many years and leads public rituals in the Chicago suburbs.]