Two poems I scribbled down on scratch paper while I was away this past week:
Nursery Rhyme
"How flawless you are,"
said the cat to the mouse
as they supped at their sunday tea.
"How flawless you are,
like the wide, healing airs
sweeping swiftly out from the sea."
"You are over-kind,"
said the mouse to the cat
as they chomped on their buttered scones.
"You are over-kind,
like the sun in the spring
as it shines on the sparkling ponds."
"But alas, O alas,"
said the cat to the mouse
as she prepared to go on her way.
"But alas, O alas,
that it must end so soon!"
And she ate the mouse straight away.
All-Father's Knowledge
Weird is the wyrd of man, and wild,
written on the stars with sacred stile,
carved on the ash of ages blessed,
graven on its leaves, which all confess
the truth to those who hang for nine --
nine days, nine nights, in death sublime.
Then opens the eye, the source of awe,
then wise becomes the Hanging God,
wise with lore of ancient runes,
wise in the ways of birth and doom.
A draught fresh-drawn from the prophet's well,
from which the poets drink their fill,
the scops who with their eddas dream
of things to come and things unseen,
will wake from slumber sleeping thoughts;
then wise becomes the prophet-God,
who gives an eye to be made wise,
who on the ash of ages dies.
The ravens from past the rainbow-bridge
with peircing eye for all things hid
go back and forth through all the lands --
of death, of elf, of god, of man;
through all the ages they, restless, roam
from root to crown to Father's throne,
his thought, his memory, turned to wing
and seeking out all things unseen.
But he sees in all, blessed or defiled,
that the strangest fate is the human child's.
