Two Ravens 020

thought and memory
forward and reverse
shield and weaponry
salient and diverse

circling the world in the wink of a flame
serving the power of the word and the name

darkness and fire
expression and pain
doom and desire
both now and again

seeking the lost of the heart and the mind
sometimes in cloud or in torment or blind

witness and watcher
reflection and light
delight and torture
perception and sight

at the end of the world both shall arise
light born in darkness and out of disguise

Hephaistos

Huginn: Today I saw the alchemist at work.

Muninn: You did? That's unusual. Why were you watching him?

H: He reminds me of me. I was surprised that he survived the fall from heaven.

M: He crafted the Myrmidon's shield, you know.

H: And will craft more wonders, it looks like.

M: I don't know. Our boy can't decide what sort of daimon the alchemist is.

Lemmings

Huginn: Across the tundra, we see the lemmings run. They aren't as suicidal as they're reputed to be. But they are tasty little creatures. Juicy, crunchy.

Muninn: Our boy ignores them. I don't think he knows they're there.

H: But that one knows them well.

M: Both of those ones do.

H: Which is danger as well as blessing, depending on which one, I guess.

M: Our boy ought to do something about it. But first, he must see the lemmings.

Two Ravens 019

both mask and face
each lovely place

conceals the law
of tooth and claw

so why do men
now and again

think nature friend
forget the end?

we saw them die
we saw them die
we saw them die
a raven's cry

Quicksilver

Huginn: Whatever acts, cannot be destroyed. That mathematician said it.

Muninn: It is the nature of the universe as it is now, that it is always moving, it is chaos and ambiguity and dynamic movement and change; and the ascetic bodies are better off aesthetic.

H: It merges, flows, puddles in little shiny blobs of mass.

M: That is thought. And also memory.

H: That is memory. And also thought.

M: That is why we are two, and also one.

Innocence

Huginn: Why does he wander?

Muninn: After all these years, you finally think to ask. What do you remember?

H: He is looking for something, something lost.

M: Very good. What do you think he has lost?

H: Something precious, something which is in a sense... (trails off, buried in thought)

M: You said it.

Two Ravens 018

the greeks called it kenosis
and so we have come to this

we cannot think
we have forgot
this is now our
appointed lot

trapped now by time
weakened by choice
knowing freedom
and loss of voice

why should angels
ravens be made
thought takes wing
memories fade

the greeks named it tragedy
yet it is how you are set free

Day

Huginn: Today's the day.

Muninn: No, it isn't. I of all ravens ought to know.

H: (defensively) Well, it is the day mortals picked to remember.

M: For the wrong reasons. It's the daymark of the turnings of the sun which commemorates the Shield of the Sky. The scars and pits are there for all to see, that it was the moon of the Earth which took the brunt of the Enemy's bolts. It was the day after the Angel of the Sun was placed to guard Eden. The day after Eve.

H: Well, it's not a nice thing to remember.

M: Don't flash your opinions at me. You weren't picked to be the rememberer.

Eve

Huginn: It's the day before.

Muninn: You always say that when it's the day before.

H: That's because it is the day before.

M: I'm the one who supposed to remember the days and the signs in the heavens which mark the days.

H: Ah, but who marks the days before?

M: Apparently, it's you.

Two Ravens 017

we stand at the gate of years
we, ourselves, just two
we know what will end in tears
despite what we do

he who stands beneath abides -
he who hangs alone
we are those set at both sides
we watch him atone

the year dies as it must die
shrivelled in the cold
death as always has to try
what it cannot hold

Emptiness

Huginn: Our boy has discovered newspapers. He likes it when his words go out.

Muninn: And do they return to him void?

H: (totally surprised) What?

M: Nothing.

H: What do you mean, nothing?

M: That would be something to a void.

Mass

Huginn: I saw them make great density from words, and the universe warped around them. They call it prayer.

Muninn: These particular humans call it Mass, and some think if it is High Mass, it is more effective.

H: Has that anything to do with the Schwarzchild Radius?

M: No, that's a different constituency. They believe in the Singularity.

H: Hmmm. That's a really difficult thing to believe in, having no dimensions and all.

M: Well, others find it hard to believe them too.

Two Ravens 016

thought before action,
consequence later;
these things awaken
time's regulator

time like a necklace
before and after
memories like beads
sorrow and laughter

thought pointing forward
memory looks back
much chasing of tails
much clearing of stack

Structure

Huginn: It's the end of the year again.

Muninn: The mortals keep shifting it; it used to be what they now call October. The day of the dead, in many cultures, was the last day of October, the gate between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

H: It makes one itchy for calendar reform.

M: Interesting, that. I have seldom seen anyone use 'calendar' correctly, as an adjective based on 'calend'. Those Romans were good at structure, I must say.

H: I prefer Icelandic, though.

M: Yes, but the alphabet is like a thorn in the flesh.

Education

Huginn: They queue up in droves to get this Education thing. It is some sort of perverse miracle.

Muninn: (looking nervously around) Is there a third one of us?

H: No, not yet. I think most of them still believe that Thought and Memory are of a higher order.

M: Why would they think otherwise?

H: I can't think why.

M: I'll remember that.

Two Ravens 015

if i knew you less well
i would mistake you for a gargoyle
but through all the ages
you have been the elegant master
of unpowered ascent

if i knew you less well
i would mistake you for a shadow
but through their sufferings
you have been the unadorned mistress
of bare necessity

why then knowledge?

it makes too clear, two clear
it comes from necessary assent
as two needles twist twine
so two, we make a tapestry
like water into wine

Wintertide

Huginn: Why do they celebrate Üller's time? That power is long gone, weakened by his neighbours, abandoned by his celebrants. Yew trees, yuletide, all the vestiges of his power, long forgotten.

Muninn: They see in him, and in Baldur the Brave, and in Odin Stormcrow, and even in Thor Redbeard, signs of the Real.

H: Why?

M: Because whether or not the reality is seen, men still have a feel for the truth. Despite other men hiding it from them, under layer and layer and layer of snow and fog and mist.

H: And our boy? What is his role in this?

M: Sometimes he is fog and mist. But he can be a sign and wonder too.

Departure

Huginn: Look, they've reached the shield of the Moon. A brave lot, these. One would have thought that the fall of Babel would have discouraged them from aiming towers at heaven.

Muninn: Remember Nimrud? He was a fine idiot. Used to shoot bronze arrows at me when he thought I wasn't looking. But his descendants are firing steel arrows at the universe.

H: How long before they leave the garden?

M: Shh. You're not supposed to say that. When the Divine told them they had been evicted, the rest of us weren't supposed to say otherwise.

H: Well, they're making a right old mess of it.

M: (sadly) I hope they manage to leave before they make the garden unliveable altogether.

Two Ravens 014

the wine was poured, red as the sun
in dust, wine and the blood were one

blood roared in veins, the poet spoke
satire like a thunder broke

the thundercloud brought promised rain
the water greened a barren plain

we saw the water and the sign
two ravens watched his gift of wine

Trinity

Huginn: Is odd, you know. I see the Highest, one. I see us, two. But there are so many things in threes and fours. Did you see what I saw over the Shining Desert?

Muninn: Blast, heat, light - a trinity unseen in such guise before. A wind that swept all before it, a strange warmth, and a blinding light that struck men blind. I remember...

H: What do you remember?

M: There was an earthquake, wind and fire. And still, it was not the Name. In the end, it was the Voice, the unvoiced majesty which speaks through silence.

H: Even I know that the silence has spoken through us. As when that bearded insurrectionist refused to eat and we had to go feed him. A low point in my career, I would have said.

M: Let flesh be dumb; let sense retire - speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, O still small voice of calm!

Mutuality

Huginn: Why is it that we are always two?

Muninn: It has always been so.

H: It seems that time and space, circumstance and chance, do not serve to separate us. No matter what is between, we are always two, gathered.

M: Those below have called it a quantum association. And others have called us complementary things.

H: Despite my misgivings, we cannot live one without the other.

M: Despite my misgivings, we are one entity and two persons, and I do not know why the Highest made it so.

Two Ravens 013

there is no art to find
thought with no heart to bind
the mind's construction in
and finds destruction in
the face
each place

i saw him writing
he was inciting
lines that would make the world
fears that would shake the world
i hovered over him
he hovered over him

his revels now have ended but his plays
are thought and memory's best-loved displays

Stealth

Huginn: Look at that bird fly. It thinks it's so damned good, black even to radar, sharp and flat and planar and ugly all over, trying to be as fast as thought and elusive as memory.

Muninn: Careful, dear. Remember what you did to the helicopters.

H: It's ugly, that's the worst part. Like that two-fat-jet skycrawling sluggard.

M: They were trying their best, and besides, they called it a Blackbird, not a Raven.

H: Why is it that humans prefer developing technology to not be seen, rather than to see?

M: They do both, but it's guilt drives the first, and prurience the second. Sigh.

Timeflying

Huginn: Are there seven ages of man? How many ages have we seen?

Muninn: The sphinx was right - there are only three. Too young to be useful, too old to be useful, and useful.

H: I'm sure it's not so simple.

M: It's not like black - there's midnight black, raven black, lamp black, pitch black, carbon black, atrament, fuligin, and a host of others. Time is one though, and easy to break into lumps without a seam.

H: What are you saying?

M: I'm not sure. I used to think time flies. Now I see that it's only we who do.

Two Ravens 012

darkness of eclipse, eyes two stars ashine
no watchmaker wrought hands like these two claws
they flex, the talons seem to cry - this, mine!
he sets thought into motion without pause

brightness of the night, eyes two moons aflame
no blind destiny could shape the ember
of this burning coal, this which cries - speak, name!
she will whisper in their hearts - remember

there stands a man; for love, he will recall
when he is old, he had surrendered all

the woman turns first from the flaming sword,
through her the garden someday is restored

for each a raven, guiding from afar
one like the night aflame, one like a star

Midgard

Huginn: So beautiful, and yet... Ice must win, or fire; the scorched ground brings forth famine, or the rising water brings death by flood. Our boy walked among the mortals, and learned nothing from them. He lost an eye, and saw more than when he had two.

Muninn: He had to.

H: Why is it that the Powers see less than the least?

M: Because the more they think of themselves as Powers, the less they remember that power is never capitalised. In all the nine worlds, the Highest looked only at the middle one, and gave himself weakness there.

H: I don't understand.

M: But when all is said, and eventually done, I will remember it all.

Irises

Huginn: Subtract the flesh, I see it now — remove the armour and the blood, lay bare the grass. In one field are poppies, rows, memorial to blood and the churning of men and mud. In another, ah, so pure they cut my mind, there are irises in the pale clarity of a morning sky. He was right, he was right, and 'iris' is a rainbow where the inmost sea gleams.

Muninn: Be careful. When thought turns to memory, one eye becomes two and all the world is changed.

H: -

M: Close your eyes; you have seen too much.

H: -

M: Irises in bloom? It will be sunflowers next. We are fortunate that you have no ears that you might want to slice one off.

Two Ravens 011

black are the feathers
of my true love's wing
bright are the fires
of her eyes of gold

grey is the shadow
of my old love's heart
grim is the sunset
of his eyes of pain

yet

joy is the language
of our time in peace
valour the music
of our flight in war

dead are the ashes
of the ages past
and still two ravens
are a life of one

Degeneracy

Huginn: Their rules are all messed up. The underlying premises are all mixed up; different systems clash; and nobody should be expected to make sense of it!

Muninn: Billions can handle it. What's your problem?

H: It's a miscegenation, a bastard tongue, this Anglish linguage.

M: That's English language, and its bastardy is its strength. By absorbing many words and word-rules, it has become tough and enduring. All flesh is grass, and the glory of flesh is as the flower of grass; the grass fails and the flower falls, but the words abide forever.

H: Yes, by cheating. By changing meaning and syntax and everything else, until they are not the same anymore!

M: Would you expect children to be infants forever?

Language

Huginn: What is a mother tongue?

Muninn: Whatever language your mother spoke to you in.

H: But we never had a mother; all I can remember is ice.

M: Not that you can remember anything. I remember geometry, the flair of crystallinity, the taste of salt and the sanctity of cold. I remember a cow and a farmer, and impossible metaphor. I remember how we saved civilisation and destroyed it, sometimes on the same day. And all these were our mother tongues.

H: So what do I put on this form?

M: Write 'Chinese'. It's more believeable, and it's about the same.

Two Ravens 010

two is parity
we spoke to silicon and it said so
one disparity

then it said to us
one of us was a processor, one a store
sounded mad to us

we are processor
and also a store, we are not carbon
its predecessor

we are ice we said
from the void before the beginning of time
silicon went dead

thinking machine cannot
beat memory and thought

Sphere

Huginn: It isn't even a sphere. It has a thin film of scum on it. It wobbles like a half-cooked egg.

Muninn: You only say that when you're depressed.

H: Why is he here at all? Wasn't hanging on a tree for three days and three nights enough?

M: Evidently not. In all the nine worlds, he has always seemed to enjoy walking around here most.

H: Wisdom, he calls it. I've always had an issue with that. It either is proper use of information or it isn't.

M: Ah-ah, not so fast; it is either correct use or it isn't.