View from the World Tree

 

Old Odin picked an acorn up, a seed,

And saw within its shell a mighty forest

From whose broad beams a fleet of ships would spring,

Ridden by thanes with hearts of bitter frost

Whose wars would bring about the doom of men.

One eye wept, as he dropped the seed to earth.

 

For he it was, in the first age of earth,

Who found the Ash that grew from the first Seed,

And hung nine days, to learn the fates of men,

And saw the runes that lay beneath the forest,

But found no way to stop approaching frost,

Nor any way to lengthen fleeting spring.

 

Today, we feel we’ve found eternal spring,

Lords of the trees, and masters of the earth;

Growers of groves that never fear the frost,

We tinker with the germ within the seed.

And yet, we sense that, deep within some forest,

There lies a secret still unknown to men. 

 

And so we still must search for gods or men

With curving horns, or eyes as green as spring,

Who hold a place for us within the forest.

We long to feel our own roots clutch the earth,

And taste, ourselves, the green power of a seed,

And shed our leaves to sleep beneath the frost.

 

But ah!  Those gods who do not fear the frost,

Their roots are deeper than the roots of men.

Though all beheaded, cut back to a seed,

They still regain their old guise in the spring –

(Unless we choose to truly rape the earth,

And cut our own throats, as we cut the forest.)

 

Alas!  Our lives are brief beside a forest,

And no rebirth may follow our gray frost,

So we must learn to love our time on earth,

Both our brief lives, and all the age of men.

For, after Ragnarok, in any spring

To come, the gods may choose a different seed.

 

And so we plant the seed to grow the forest

To bloom in spring and shatter in the frost

To teach men what we need to learn on earth.