Sacrifice of Myself to Myself
Sacrifice of Myself to Myself
By John Divinagracia
“Hot winds and cold winds blowing,
My spear to my side,
I hung beneath the World Tree, swaying,
As the runes of worlds burned my eyes.
And I dedicated my torment to myself,
A sacrifice of myself to myself,
And I called to Thought and Memory,
And from my words to man, they carry.”
These are the words of Odin All-Father, who sits on Asgard high,
As a noose wraps his neck to Yggdrasil,
With spear and fire and ice by his side.
And in the torment of nine days and nine nights, the nine worlds revealed themselves to him, gave him their secrets, their powers, until he made them his own.
I too am a one-eyed wanderer, clad in a cloak as blue as the sky,
Only to be black in starlight when nothing hides me anymore.
I too have suffered, not for nine days and nine nights, but for a lifetime.
Work and sorrow coil like nooses to my neck,
Chaining my freedom that is me to the World.
Hot winds of fury and colds winds of disdain freeze my blood and burn my soul for many days, not of nine, but more than nine, and so on.
Then a spear of regret and agony pierces my heart, a thing I have done to myself,
In the desperation of understanding, for the tormenting quest for knowledge and wisdom, from which my thoughts and memories would carry to others willing to hear the cries of ravens.
Days more than nine I have done this,
This sacrifice of myself to myself,
Nothing has appeared before me as this ordeal takes my breath and bleeds me dry.
We bear our burdens alone, hanging on trees rooted to our worlds.
We go to gallows and graves, buried on our worlds.
And for what?
Yet work and sorrow still hang my neck to this world,
With heated rage and frozen fury to harass,
With agony and regret to spear my side,
Waiting, hoping, that this was worth it,
That one day, perhaps in the ninth day, the world will finally have something to offer,
From which I would offer something to the world.
And so I dedicate this sacrifice of myself to myself.