Sky Ladder

It came in a dream: I was
alone, the night around me, a rock as a pillow

beneath my head. A great ladder
grew from the earth, rung upon rung sprouting

upwards in a vine-like manner. I knew it was a symbol
and that I should move towards it, knew I should stand

at its base in preparation for ascent. I watched myself go
from my makeshift bed, rise from the ground

to grip the ladder’s sides, shift my weight from foot to foot.
I saw myself get smaller, my body working as I climbed

away from the terrestrial. Sky swirled around me,
an illuminated ocean, planets turning inside its currents.

I looked down at myself, only a speck now, lying in a field
between the ice caps of mountains and arid deserts,

forests and cities and all their inhabitants. I felt alone
and envied myself, homesick for a place I could only now see.

It was a dream about escaping.
It was a dream about becoming someone else.

---

Bronte Heron is a Pākehā poet, writer, and arts worker from Aotearoa, currently living in Gariwerd, Australia. Their work explores the intersections of ecology, open systems, family, and transformation, and has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the Lois Roth Foundation, the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Woodward Residency, and Story Inc. They are currently at work on their first collection of poetry, Nighttime Gardener. For more information, visit bronteheron.com.