Yggdrasil

        1.

Snow in the North, over the white river,
Is falling still on the covenant-
It is the Tree of the whole World.
Deep in its clouded branches quivers a scythe.
It may be the moon's icy blade.
The worm of radical darkness
Fastens a soft mouth to the root.

        2.

Sometimes risen from sleep on winter nights
Bared to the frore violence that slides under concrete
Or tightens glass,
You imagine a shivering in the rocks the city is built on,
And you cannot lapse again backwards in the drowsy body
Because of the mind's ice.

You stand in the sundering world. You take hold.

        3.

In the cold hours
As long as you wind upon your wrists with hard honor
Love
The world's chain, the sun's and stars' mover,
Just so long yours are the hands
That brace the shuddering structure of earth and heaven,
Hold safe beneath the snowy moon
Rock, river and city,
Lock life in the World's Tree,
And, for a while, keep all things fast from ruin.

        4.

The scythe of the moon will wane,
The wasting world go cold,
The Tree be felled at last,
But love to the breaking chain
Tightens its rooted hold,
And the world stays fast.

　

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