Ravens 010

We watched the rainbow
Birds in their plumage aflow
We watched the fire
Of man's hope and his desire

We turned from the light
The stark contrast was too bright
We flew from the dark
Too much death after the ark

And now we are two
Too tired and blue
Memory and thought
Of old battles fought

Evenstar

Huginn: Into the west, we saw the ships sail. We have seen many ships sail, on many ventures, in many worlds, over many seas.

Muninn: She who was with them was the most beautiful of her age, she who was left behind was grey and would someday die.

H: Is it always the fate of women to be sacrificed for men, to bear brave boys who will come, cradled corpses, in their time?

M: It is. And always, for woman was made to be the measure of all things, and the measure of life to the full.

H: And man? Was he not made for something?

M: He was made to die for woman; most times, he fails. But the first he who had to, did. And second time round, it showed perfection, that a man should die for his friends. Yes, women sacrifice themselves. But the measure of man is that he does it at the crunch.

Sonnenstag

Huginn: Have you ever noticed the odd fact of Northern theology? It makes sun and sound and himself all one. Only in cold and stark contrast can all of these things be more than what they are alone.

Muninn: If I remember aright, there was a time when sound and light and himself were indeed all one, and it was cold. It was dark and cold and we were born into it, without form and void and he said, "Ho, I have made thee all black in all black and were I not as I am that I am, I would see thee not."

H: And he sees us not, these days. His burning gaze sweeps elsewhere; we are orphans now.

M: I think he sees us again, and again. He is ever awake, always alert; if he sees us not, it is mercy, and forgiveness.

H: What have we done that needs forgiveness. We were with him at the moon; we were the first against the foe; we resisted falsehood and deceit and the warping of fact and perspective. Why should we be forgiven?

M: My love, my love, it is because we made ourselves first, and we resisted, and we never thought we might have to be forgiven someday - that is why we must someday be forgiven.

Ravens 009

my wings will bear us
lightly through the years
into the highest
where the sunlight sears

where oxygen fails
stars are spheres of light
we will touch the face
we fought the good fight

we helped the humans
brought to deserts streams
he will repay us
with the stuff of dreams

with no doubt or fear
should he cast us back
we will be happy
together in black

Flower

Huginn: Today I see flowers, and each flower is an image of the world, a furled banner of eternity made small and fractal. Each ocean is a drop of dew, each grain of sand a continent. And all is enrapt in a cloud of light and shadow.

Muninn: There was once a time when the new-born world might have seemed that way. There were five petals, as always, and the rose which might have bloomed was a mighty one. But the flower fades, the petals fall, and in the end is nothing save the bare bones of infinity.

H: Must we hold everything up to the sun? Are we stalk and branch? Are we questing vine and tendril and pillar of cloud and fire?

M: My love, never forget we were indeed once cloud and fire, harbingers of the Power by day and by night.

H: It seems so long ago, and the flower... ah! the flower is fallen and the petals are dead, dead, dead. Doom, doom, doom, doom...

M: You are Thought, my elder by a fleeting instant. You are Thought, whom He made first. But I am Memory, and I hold all in trust against the coming of the dark. And I tell you, my love, Forget.

Wheels

Huginn: Why are we thinking so much about wheels?

Muninn: It is what we do. You think, and I remember, and the ravens wheel. It is called cognition, and should it happen again, it is recognition.

H: On the high mountain/wheels the crane against the sky/the wind is laughing.

M: That is a cognitive feat, and it runs on cognitive feet towards its intangible goal. I shall archive it under haiku, and remember it when you have next taken a hike.

H: Today we are being silly, aren't we?

M: Thought can be silly, but Memory remains memory.

Ravens 008

we watched him think under a tree
we watched his thirsty silence
he threw away his wealth and he
abhorred all thought of violence

eight folds he made, eight folds he trod
the universe he made like god

we watched him cast his life away
teach suffering as existence
though prince he was, he would not stay
and offered no resistance

eight folds he made, eight folds he trod
he looked within for sign of god

we watched him go where he would go
his followers were many
but wheels are round and all was slow
under the frangipani

Cogito

Huginn: We are but cogs in the Great Wheel.

Muninn: I shall admonish you once and harshly now. We are not of that kind of philosophical tradition or traduction. We do not go round in circles effectuating things. And the Great Wheel has no cogs in it. It is not cognitive at all.

H: (sulkily) It was but a figure of speech.

M: And a rather circular figure it was too.

H: But existence itself is a structure of wheels within wheels ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

M: Yes, one kind of existence is; but you must never forget, my love, that we are above and beyond that structure in many ways.

Overtime

Huginn: So we are back on track again?

Muninn: It looks like Ragnarok was a false alarm.

H: How is one to know whether something is false or true, alarm or excursion?

M: It is all to do with time. One cannot know if it is Thought or Memory unless one knows the chronological context of the event. The same is true of true and false, or alarm and excursion.

H: Then it is all over for me, for I have nothing to do with Time.

M: No, it is never over for you, always over for me, and everything over Time.

Ravens 007

old hamlet of stone houses
held fast by age and grouses
we saw their roofs all leaking
walls groaning and doors squeaking

seldom do we see
the everyday state
the squalor to be
each eventual fate

Atrament

Huginn: We think lofty thoughts because we are creatures of the air.

Muninn: We have thought other thoughts too, despite being creatures of the air.

H: We think dark thoughts because we are creatures of the dark.

M: That is going too far; prince he might be of powers of the air, but we are not, and neither.

H: We think dark and lofty thoughts.

M: You should not place yourself in the same class as the avenging angels.

Tower

Huginn: They are locking the ravens up in the Tower now. It is to protect them from avian influenza.

Muninn: Such nonsense! We outflew the plague in centuries past, and certainly our brethren are not likely to be chicken.

H: How are the mighty fallen, who once were a storm of wings and darkness!

M: Do you remember when we were dragons?

H: If we were dragons, we would not be susceptible to avian influenza.

M: No. I don't suppose we would.

Ravens 006

they scatter like sparks
watch the birds they fly
in fiery arcs
across the sky

for one bright moment
a grace note in doom
not we in torment
in dusty room

for one great second
not ravens we were
briefly not reckoned
briefly not here

we were birds and freedom and midnight and spirit and shadow and poetry and harbingers and warlocks and dance
but now we are ravens
orphans of chance

Villainy

Huginn: Look now, upon this Merlion isle. Think upon the currency of its being - that it is current, being new; that it is current, being electrical; and that it is current, being a tide in the affairs of men.

Muninn: I remember, as you do not, when it was claiming to be a village - that it was a village, being a collection of houses; that it was a village, boasting villagers (or those who thought of themselves as such); that it was a village, pretending to be fish while being foul, or fowl, or a haven for piracy.

H: And it seems that now it is still a haven for piracy?

M: We have seen these ones comply with every law, under heaven, under Heaven, under god, under God; indeed, Justice is blindfolded upon its highest courts, and bears a scale while shaving every coin with a dagger.

H: But still it gouts, and makes of itself a haven for law, and peace, and prosperity.

M: We have seen many like it, and only a few, like Londinium, living to a ripe old age.

Valency

Huginn: A heart describes a trajectory, a collision of blood and valve and oxygen. The heart may meander, but it does not wander.

Muninn: It is true to its purpose, but what that purpose is, nobody knows. And those who think they know, sometimes do not look far ahead enough.

H: You're thinking of Man, as he was, firstborn of the Maker.

M: I am thinking of Man, himself. He loved her because she was flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, heart of his heart.

H: Are you saying you wish we were like that? Bonded by bone and blood?

M: My heart, my heart; remember what ravens are about, and know that we already are.

Ravens 005

sunrise and morning star
a serpent and a tree
two ravens watch a woman walk afar
to taste what she can see

but such a fruit as nature seems to hide
on verdant branch is hung
where womanly wandering will decide
the fate of earth still young

dragon and morning flame
a woman and a man
two ravens see a world no more the same
as only ravens can

for love abides and in his mind and heart
man grasps the need and dies
from woman's labour and his labour's art
one day they will arise

Evening

Huginn: And so all men are equal, and we argue about what it means.

Muninn: It is what was said at the beginning. It is not to say there is no advantage at all. It is merely that what men think of as advantage — wealth, power, immortality, health, success — is not necessarily advantage at all.

H: So when the sun sets, all things are equally dark, and as it rises, all things are equally lit, if one considers the arc of its path and the radius of its light. It still seems unfair.

M: That is true, but it is more that we see as if the moon is the sun, not knowing what the sun is. Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me, is all I ask.

H: But the bar is often not the same for all crossings of it. And it is hard for some encumbered to cross so easily.

M: Twilight and evening bell, and after that, the dark. But remember, dear one, it is an evening — an opportunity for all things, great and small, to be evened out.

Mourning

Huginn: It is time. We measure it linearly, it begins at zero, the moment of light; it ends at omega, the moment of darkness. And it is time now, to bid farewell.

Muninn: As memory persists, so do I. As Memory persists, so does he. We remember him as he was, as being, as reality and as image. And we will remember each atom of his ash, and the ash of each atom, till the end of days.

H: It is density. It is destiny. It is one and the other, both as one. For the weight of sin is concentrated in the flesh of one, and the end of it is to be done.

M: As mass persists, so does he. As Mass persists, so does his memory. We remember him as he will be, as king, as theophany and light. And we will remember the flame of his spirit, and the spirit of his flame, beyond the end of days.

H: It isn't yet Easter, or even Good Friday.

M: It doesn't matter, it is always time.

Ravens 004

heavy is dusk
my lonely crown
the stars stand forth
as i sit down

the tower falls
our tongues disperse
all strangers now
for good or worse
the echoes fail
and in converse
they speak more sooth
than prose or verse

and all our days
and all our days
and all our days
are
dusk

Tourney

Huginn: Party per fess, sable and azure, a tower arcane proper, impaled by a sword afire.

Muninn: The arms of the Guardian, he who swore at Nimrod's face and broke his wine-bowl in twain.

H: I see an eagle armed, thirteen arrows and a branch of thirteen fruit, all proper. This one is young, barely at twelvescore years it stands, but its beak is agape, bloody, and spittle flares like white fire from its shrieking.

M: The Guardian stands?

H: The Guardian stands on Persia, as he did before. But I do not see the Silver and Azure; Michael of the Host stands aside.

M: He opposed Michael, you know, once upon a time, and contended fiercely. This time, he might win, and we will have more work, and worse.

Summons

Huginn: From here to heaven the beacons burn, the shires have seen it plain.

Muninn: You remember Housman, as he remembered Bran the Blessed.

H: I think of sequences and false alarms. It is as if we have been flying forever, signallers of the Host, both hunted and hunter, both least and most.

M: Be careful, love, you were almost poetic there. The memories of Albion are not always the memories of the valiant, the wise, or the cunning. Sometimes, history tells us that men can be cowardly, foolish, banal.

H: Yet we have fed them (prophet and king!) and fed off them (on fields of battle). And we are summoned again for one or both.

M: And sometimes, they name us either angels or devils, forgetting that we are ravens.

Ravens 003

warhorse in melee
but where the rider

where is the lady
sitting astride her

the field is empty
filled all with grass now

nothing do men see
of glory passed now

all blood is history
all flesh is dust now

Arc-Light

Huginn: They burnt her outside the wall, you know. I felt bad about the voices.

Muninn: Yes, dear, but we had to give her the voices. We have to serve the Highest, and it was the will of Him who sent us.

H: She should not have cried out to us.

M: She did not cry out except to us.

H: We watched her burn, and that was when fire no longer was our friend, but our enemy.

M: We watched her burn, but you should remember, He used fire to bar us from the Garden.

Story-Arc

Huginn: There is a green field far away, without a city wall.

Muninn: The one with the white horse? Or the one with the burning girl?

H: I think there were both of them. It was not so long ago, and yet it seems very long ago.

M: When they say, "Once upon a time..." I am always upset at the cavalier treatment of time.

H: Time's treatment of cavaliers is worse. And I think "...and they lived happily ever after" is one of the saddest lies I have ever heard. Yet, I cannot help but hope.

M: At the end of time is a green tree for both of us. But I cannot remember it.

Ravens 002

turning and turn
ing in widening gyre
the falcon can
not see the falconer

for night is here
chaos old night and death
the ravens rise
and heaven holds her breath

things fall apart
the centre cannot hold
mere anarchy
is loosed upon the world

as sunlight fails
the falcon's blinded sight
a storm of wings
shuts out the straining light

Uriel

Huginn: They come. Uriel leads them, and their spears flash. Evasive action recommended.

Muninn: Uriel. Unit rank - Archangel. Unit designation - Fire of God. Armament - 1 x Divine Spear (legacy technology); 1 x Flaming Sword (of the Spirit). Defence - Shield of Faith (category X), Aura of Sanctity (3m radius). Enhancements - Omniscience (8000m radius), Thought Disruption (100m radius).

H: You are doing this to show off your database. There is no escape for mortals (p=0). The Archangel is too great.

M: I am Memory, and the Gates were never shut against me, nor the Walls of Fire raised against my eyes.Remember also what He said; He has chosen the small things of the world to confound the great.

H: Fortunate then that we are small.

M: More fortunate, we, to be ravens. And immortal.

Thunder

Huginn: The world is over.

Muninn: The world is past.

H: That is almost the same.

M: And yet, totally different. We are history, and we know this to be true.

H: We are science, and we see this to be true.

M: Sometimes, what you see is not what you know.

Ravens 001

flight out of darkness
nightfall behind
into the brightness
all undefined

we are the faithful
rebels who fell
graceful and grateful
watchers of hell