I've been fiddling with the idea for a long poem of an eccentric sort, called "Cosmogonies." Here's a taste of the first draft of the First Cosmogony. I'm thinking about calling it "The Cosmogony of Cold"; if I do, there will probably be at least three cosmogonies: a Cosmogony of Fire and a Cosmogony of the Dead.
First Canto of the First Cosmogony
I have crossed the rainbow-bridge
like a raven taking flight,
night made manifest in wisdom.
Like a river through green lands
I have journeyed to the sea,
the deep, black sea, the ocean-void,
where the cold is ever colder
and the ear is over-ridden
by the moans, the sighs, the screams,
of the Dead upon our shoulders.
Wings past the face, bitter winds brush
a frost on eternity's edge,
a silver bracken
born of mist and cold.
Trees unrooted walk. Birds sing
in poets' voices amid the leaves
of the Everlasting Ash,
upon whose trunk is writ,
more deep than the longest spears,
the runes by which the world works,
of which seekers only dream.
The roots grow deeper and deeper,
touching void,
near to the cave of Sleepers
where the ancients softly muse
in restless sleep and vision
until the day of doom.
I have crossed the sea of dreams,
like the raven on my mast
I manifest the night in fleshly form.
As the wavest hat beat the shore
I wander home,
upon the ocean-void, the deepest sea,
where cold is ever colder
and the ear is overwhelmed
by the whispers in a dream
of the Dead upon my shoulder.
Night, like bat-wing, brushes
with sound like shifting sea
that waves and laps and hushes
upon eternity's edge,
a changeless change,
a memory of forever.
Clouds unburdened loom, and storm
flies out God's mouth
like truth and time;
the Ash of Ages shudders
beneath the murmurings of Jove.
Thunder is the Law;
it is the voice of Heaven,
the maker of taboo,
shaping every void.
The lightning is its miracle,
the sign that marks its truth,
the Promethean gift of fire
sent out by the Ceaseless Law.
Everything hovers on eternity's edge,
pendant in the expanse,
restlessly waiting in the void.
Fourth Canto of the First Cosmogony
As night is alone, as dawn is alone,
so the bard was alone.
As light is alone, as dark is alone,
so the sea was alone.
All was waste and void,
a very yearning for true order.
Sky-upholder! The womb is great,
the earth is big with promise,
the charm is here prepared
in the branches of the Ash
that, everylasting, keeps its watch
on the aching, restless void.
The fruit is ripe for tasting;
the flower blooms in full.
As hope is alone, as dream is alone,
the bard was alone and restless.
Nine ages of men there was silence.
Nine ages of gods there was gloom.
