Speaking of which, I once did this one, back in the late 70s.
Hal
================
Odin's Wood
"I know that I hung on the windy tree
For nine whole nights,
Wounded with the spear, dedicated to Odin,
Myself to myself."
from the *Havamal*
1.
Fingers of wind
wound in my hair.
The fingers were mine
as much as the hair. The wind
hears my voice and obeys.
The wind is my voice and I
am obedient to myself. I hang
and bleed upon my own tree. The tree
is mine and I am both the tree
and he who is hung from the tree.
2.
You, my cloud, take the form of a man
and walk into the village. Ask there whose voice it is
that is heard in the forest when wind wails
mournfully in the trees.
They'll give one of my names. They'll say hereabouts it is Odin's,
the father of poetry, the prophet, the magician.
The great god of wisdom and war.
3.
"Who made the spear?" I'll ask them.
And they will say, "Odin fashioned it."
"And to what end did he make it?"
"To kill himself," they'll say.
"Can the spear kill its maker?" I'll ask.
"In a manner of speaking," they'll say.
4.
On the last night, the moon was low in the sky
when the ravens returned. The intrigues of the court
were whispered in my ear, the secrets of the world. My blood
flowed down my groin, along my legs and feet. It darkened the bark
of the gallows tree and flowed down into the earth,
where it was sucked up by roots, eaten by ravenous worms.
From worms and roots my godhood seeps into bush and tree,
into dove and pheasant and owl and fox and deer and man,
and gods eat men, now don't they? And that way eat themselves.
=====================
{ Check this link out.
{
{ It's one of THE POEMS of the world.
{
{ (Says one who's had to study it in school
{ and didn't lose his love for it as a result):
{
{ The link:
{
{ http://www.simnet.is/gardarj/havamal.htm
{
{
{ Best
{
{ Árni
{
{
{ --
{ Árni Ibsen
{ Stekkjarkinn 19,
{ 220 Hafnarfjördur,
{ Iceland
{
{ tel.: +354-555-3991
{ e-mail: [log in to unmask]
{ http://www.centrum.is/~aibsen/
{
|