#icelanded
Homage to Odin, of words and wisdom, poetry and bard.
Epic saga of the separated sisters’ quest for a feather, shark meat, and adventure.
Velkominn.
To rolling
bucolic green backdrops,
Plates of ripped, ridged earth,
Plates of ripped, ridged earth,
Tectonic
shift to surface salt and sulfur.
Rocks
remain from Viking victories,
Justice
first served for the four kingdoms, to the quarters:
Earth to the north, air to east, fire south and water west.
Earth to the north, air to east, fire south and water west.
Ram horn spirals,
Baby black sheep bleating,
Horses muzzling in soft rain.
This is a bridge of trolls.
That volcano of dragons.
Fingers
of clouds exhaled by knolls, cascade over elven waterfalls.
We are
ice walkers, following lines to horizon beyond.
Carve the sign of Thor into the mountainside to find the bloodstone.
Bless Freya on the compass pillar thrust ashore by captains lost.
Glacial waves crash, gnash, snarled lips peeled back to show teeth beneath--
dark,
rubbed soft, revealing.
Sun
bleached sea monsters among black stones,
whisper
under bare feet ancient psalms in forgotten tongue, the Elder Fudhark.
Frost soaked cliff cracks stone bones
like a holy
book left in rain.
Trust no
rocks, wander not for shore birds nest below.
Feel the heartbeat of lava beneath moss skin.
Red eyed ravens feast on hidden remains.
House the
elves to protect the bridge.
Light on water, fingerlets,
Lupin
bundles,
Heath
buttercups.
I will call you sugar mountain, you volcano you.
My body
becomes the pink beach, flesh-toned sand.
Sticks,
stones, bones.
Never
forget this spiral, prehistoric symbols swept away in rising tide.
Steel
boat beached in high grass a century ago,
Ribs worn
through, portals of a forgotten beast.
Race to the ends of the earth, most westerly breast of Europa,
To find
the nesting puffins, to make your heart sing.
Press your
body into the cliff as it juts to nothingness.
Peer down
at the vast below.
Seal your identity on this blood moon eclipse we cannot see.
For the
light is always bright here, brighter still as home nears.
There is
a vastness, as earth in cosmos.
Reminder of
mortality, a grain of sand.
There is
not the feather.
Nor not
the tools to repel down this face and away from fear
As the
old men who still collect eggs to honor the ancestors.
Reversal
of roles in reverence.
Read runes to harness lunar shadow in everlasting twilight.
Become Uroz, the ancient ox, wild unbridled strength, a seed,
a beacon
for self and world.
Chariot
on one wing, birch on another, grow roots and go forth.
You are so strong, so brave, and shouldn’t always have to be.
Breathe in presence, out peace.
You are so strong, so brave, and shouldn’t always have to be.
Breathe in presence, out peace.
Breathe
in balance, out freedom, connect.
The trolls journey at night, we follow by day.
The trolls journey at night, we follow by day.
They have
been caught and frozen, shovel in hand,
trying to
tear the coast apart.
The fairies watch wondering as we peer through the sorcerer’s door
at cauldron
within, foreign markings that feel right.
A
struggle, a sorrow, but never more.
Ravens
are much larger than crows and
the
invisibility spell takes far too much blood to be my magic.
A
sickening in this death over stolen milk,
Such scarcity.
Warm
water, cold rain, rinse, repeat, release.
“Your heart is the softest place on earth. Take care of it.”
“Your heart is the softest place on earth. Take care of it.”
When the world is ending, will you want to know, as Odin, and die in honor?
Will you
watch the clouds roll in with me? On these last lava rocks and soak them into
our skin.