Yggdrasil

by Bill Arnott

Yggdrasil – the world tree, mother ash
stands astride a Nordic knoll
beyond Uppsala’s temples
where every god – the real ones
take meat and mead amongst the Norns
Wyrd, Verðandi, Skuld

atop the tree the eagle with no name resides
witness to our lives and spindle whorls of fate
an eyrie shared with a hawk called Veðrfölnir
witherer of wind

from a drifting wooden ark I saw the eagle
through looming crags of crystal leaded ice
“Nattoralik,” whispered the Greenlander
aurora eyes squinting into cloudless Arctic sky
following the nameless one in flight

high overhead the giant sailed
across a canvas of calcium blue
the hawk invisible to us
its presence though we felt
in the eagle’s sweeping gaze
removing every trace of wind
breath sucked silent from our lungs
a contour feather whoosh the only sound