TWO RAVENS

2014
Sun Yung Shin

The god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, or Thought and Memory.
These ravens circle the earth each day, black eyes their shining dark cameras
Ransacking sight, breaking the skin of sleep
Citizens of air and the godworlds
Darkness leaks from the edges of their feathers
Their task: gather the happenings for their master,
What blazes, what treaties written and broken, siege and spells
Who drowns in forgetfulness, who drinks the cup of love
Slander and tyrants, rise and fall of homelands, the creation of citizens and foreigners
The ravens Thought and Memory eat it all
Swim out of the gravity of the wasp-noisy human world
Enter Valhalla like two black arrows
Like the long and short hands of the naked clock
They pour report into the ear of Odin
And all the bones and veils of our world pour in like moonlight