The Tragedy of Mistletoe
Frigg to Baldr
My gleaming Baldr, I’m sorry
mother has taken all pains,
"no death and harm will take you,
even The Harbringer of gods. It’s not for us
it’s for everyone else," your one-blinded father
shaped the world from bones,
sweats, dreams and blood of a giant but only loved you.
You are the herdsman of evening.
Son, you herded homeward
whatever dawn's light
dispersed, the burning rainbow bridge
fleeted for you. I'm sorry
I was not there
when mistletoe dart pierced through your chest,
when blind-folded brother
Hodr was tricked
by an adoration of father, a tiny giant son
who is now a blood-brother, whose sons Sköll and Hati will eat the chariots sun and moon.
"Do you remember, your foot foal was sprained. Sinthgunt, the sister of the sun,
your mother and I sang to the foot
in order for it to heal.
Ah, you were always bleeding,
famous and fair in the lofty fields,
full grown in strength, winter haustorium stood.
From the branch which seemed,
so slender and fair
Came a harmful shaft that Hodr
should hurl; His hands he washed not,
his hair he combed not,
Till he bore to the bale-blaze : my son's foe.
But in Fensalir did Frigg weep sore
For Valhöll's need."
I have warned every river, dirt, air, woods
leafy greens, jades, gods, animals
not to harm you
but a blush blossoms in a frozen winter.
I swear, the plant would kiss anyone
who passed beneath so long
as it was never again used
as a weapon.
"Must I remind you, Frigg,
that sound of grief, your golden tears
are unbearable in a poet's household,
my study is now echoes, ghosts:
'I cannot feel life, feel the moist purple
saxifrage open along Klarälven,
and galaxies have not laid torches on my heart.'"
Say what you please, Mad One
my tears, gold is God's child
neither worms nor moths eat gold,
it is much stronger than a giant's heart.
"My blood-brother has granted Baldr's death
and his pain. He was dying
while feeling alive."
But it is your love, once again,
tearing the realms, shaking the stars
and flaming sword of Surtr shreds the sky
and Gjallarhorn is sounded as a herald
of our demise. Our Greek tragedy.
All because Baldr
could not feel but mistletoe.
Oxford, 3 November 2022
Odin to Baldr
Oh, to be my son, the sunlight,
to be invulnurable,
to feel tears from a blind eye.
Mistletoes laughing on snow,
a God-slayer!
funeral pyre! Hringhorni,
don't, I beg you,
shred my heart with grief!
come, at once.
You heard that The Harbringer was not for us,
you heard me stepped from your mother's house
to your golden chariot and ring Draupnir,
to yoke the pair whose alluring
thick-feathered Valkyrie wings
oaring down mid-air from heaven
carried you, as a child, to light swiftly.
Now, on dark earth, grey river Ífingr,
blissful one, roaring your immortal smile.
Nanna, your wife came with dews
poured down to freshen roses
and barley, delicate thyme
and blossoming sweet clovers.
She wandered aimlessly,
thinking of gentle Baldr,
her sun and moon. Her heart hanging
heavy with thunder and longing.
A bolt came from her mouth, shrieking,
thousand-eared night repeats
that cry across the sea shining
under the Bifröst.
Then she drowned
from her own storm
of tears that flooded her hair. Drowned in pain.
Oh, to be in pain
is to feel all sweetness lost,
all silent reverie.
Love once found hidden under
wild hyacinths, is no more.
Dead souls of fallen warriors, like petals lost
of autumn lilies, are dancing.
Like fireflies
in damping fields of May.
Father wishes
he cannot be broken now,
to feel nothing like you,
a light smitten
with beautiful curse,
since he cannot bear the pain
of losing you.
Losing you
is like loosing a song to the realm.
I have lost in smooth flowering grass.
There, even a mistletoe weeps.
London, 4 November 2022
Loki, At Baldr’s Funeral, Looking At Odin
Father. Of All. Blood-brother.
Am I more to a kin to you, if hated
than loved? I love you since long ago
while you still saw me, a small
ungracious giant’s child
of land war-ravaged and thawing tears.
But you, even though you shelter me
in your Aesir, wisdom-poisoned one eye,
I am a stranger still, ever. Oaring
my boat along Gopul, alone.
You dart off to Asgard
with a sunless infant, blue-cold.
"Tell me it's not yours by Jotnar woman!"
Frigg was piqued.
I bring only night. Sure, Baldr the morning! temperate Asgard
and her honeyed-tongue gods!
I bring only ice ravine. Growling moon.
Clotted night, the mead at Mimir's well,
rocks of blood and tears of the Ymir.
Ancient chasm singing. Ginungagap.
I have a son. The Nornirs
weaving golden yarn on their Fate tapestry
has put a torch on your heart.
A wolf will beckon you. Realms shattered, decayed as dry hays afire.
My son, a wolf, whom you enchained
over your mad tribulation of immortality
so you say "immortality", I say
"you fear death". That is
very mortal. Very human.
Great and rich as you are
Death will finish you, like your sunshine.
Like moon, Skol and Hati wax and wane.
Afterwards no one will pray to you.
Why shall mankind pray to a dead god?
The Harbringer by my son shall be
the herald of your frail creation.
Oppressed and slaves, mankind share
my eloquent wound as a stranger.
There will be new crown. They will rule
with golden pyre and conquer the sea
without Aesir Vanir, Jötnar.
I swear, Father, that day they will cheer
"Gods are dead! and we have killed them!"
Ashes of us will be scattered.
So sunders the age of gods and Jötnar.
But arise from ashes! cunning, frail human
on this goodly frame, Midgard, seems to you a barren headlands and womb, look!
All created not from Ymir's carcass, but with
nature and geometry!
the stained glass freeze all prayers,
this brave, miserable colourful figure, a majestical pillars fretted with snow and fire, carved with marble, their heart-wrenching idols!
This king will make you even cry.
And from cry-heart, you will kneel.
What a magnum opus is man!
in apprehension, how like a god!
So you will die. I die. My son, my wife
mountains, river, trees, my kins in Ironwood.
Angrboda. My love.
But it's justified to start a beautiful world
only with a frail mistletoe dart
piercing through the sun's heart.
Surabaya, 10 Desember 2022
