Odin's Ravens
Long did Odin recline
nursed by the long slain.
Long had he relied for news
from his two ravens,
from a world he still thirsted after
and long did love.
His one eye itched
for their long expected return.
Muninn
(known in the old tongue,
as Odin’s Memory),
at last appeared.
The birds sable feathers
were now ghost-grey.
It stumbled in its speech
as it spoke of
what it had seen of the world.
Long were its strange tales,
long were the gaps in its telling
until Odin could not piece together
the recalled from the unrecalled.
In time his second great raven
Huginn (Odin’s thoughts),
entered his awareness
together with its dark ponderings.
Its dire re-telling's
they smote Odin with such force
that he gasped
in a toothless gawp of horror.
He called for his nurse, alas
no nurse was to be found,
he was adrift
upon the long night.
Dawn found his caregivers
searching high, seeking low.
yet only the long discarded bones
of ancient ravens littered his abode.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2021
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