Odin

Odin
sits on a stone
with one eye on the Tree
and the other rolling on the ocean’s floor.
The meanest of the gods
is half blind but
nothing escapes him.
Warrior days are coming.
The same old Trickster
is still pulling the strings;
he can tell by the ache
in his half empty face.

He adjusts his robe
and pokes at the empty socket,
inside which he swears he can feel
the messages sent here by the roots
piercing the sea bed
and plunging all the way
to the core of the earth
without burning.

What they carry to the limbs of Yggdrasil
is the taste of the smoke of the axis
as it grinds down.
He can do nothing about that —

if the Tree is poisoned,
if Asgard falls,
he’ll sit here
and think about war
and pestilence
as any old man would,
as they all do
in the twilight of their years.

There’s a reason he holds
his robe so close
against the eventual cold
that will follow the Burning
that will surely come.