Scribo Scribere

Hwaet!

Listen!

Said the scop far back in reach of time,

as he spoke before a circle, around a fire,

looked toward the beginning of all,

telling tales of what was before:

the creation of the world,

the Ancient of Days, our first dwelling,

Eden, how all that had come to naught;

told the travails of desert wanderers,

parting of seas, wonders of light;

told the coming of a Teacher, thereafter exalted,

to illumine for us what we do, that hurts others,

or else that hurts ourselves: our eternal souls.

To the scop, such early bard, this was the immaculate,

pristine, ever fruitful story. It could only be told

in the mead hall, around a heady fire.

Scops live still, in our very age.

The exchange of words, the human connection:

in all that passes between us, a story is told.

Rich and rare, the future; just as much,

the story of the past. But, to the scop,

the favorite story of all is that lived, made, crafted

out of the most valuable resource of all: Life.

Life’s story lives in every day.

In tales we tell, we are the heroes, each of us

the center of our own, sweet, good time.

However brief the candle, however bounded

the brightness of the torch, for a time, at least,

still it lasts.

The scop knew, each time he plied his craft,

that he imbued his stories with bits of himself

just as soon as they were spoken, that those

who sat and listened were weaving their own webs,

finding their place in the world in tales they told.