The Poet And The Pencil
If I were a poetI would sing the breeze to dance
Endlessly, flawlessly
I would weave sounds
To the delight of the deaf
Whilst they dance and prance
If I were a poet
I'd phonate and steal attention
Ne'er go a day without being mentioned
The trees would still their dances
In humble salutation
If I were a poet
The cosmos would gather round
To admire this piece of mine
But I am not a poet
God is the poet
Bragi -- Carl Wahlbom
Bragi was the Norse god of poetry, eloquence, music, and singing. He was the son of Óðinn and the jötunn (giant) princess
ReplyDeletegiantess Gunnlöð ("battle-invitation"), the daughter of Suttungr. In the 13th century Snorri Sturluson composed the "Skáldskaparmál," the 1st part of which was a dialogue between Bragi and the sea jötunn Ægir on the nature of poetry: Two rival groups of gods, the Æsir and the Vanir, who sealed peace between them by spitting in a vat and then created as a symbol of this truce a man named Kvasir. He knew the answer to very question and gave knowledge to mankind, but he was killed by 2 dwarves who mixed his blood with honey and thus creating a mead which made anybody who drank it a poet or scholar. They told the gods that Kvasir had suffocated in intelligence. The dwarves later killed Gunnlöð's grandparents, and Suttungr tied them to a rock that would soon be covered by the rising tide. He stored it in the mountain Hnitbjörg and put his daughter Gunnlöd in charge of guarding it. Óðinn disguised himself as a snake, crawled into Hnitbjörg, and bargained to have 3 nights of sex with Gunnlöð in exchange for 3 sips of mead, but he ticked her and stole it all. Their bastard son Bragi was the "first maker of poetry," according to the "Skáldskaparmál."
God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.
--Robert Browning, "Paracelsus"