‘Yggdrasil’ – a poem and a tribute to the ash tree.

Yggdrasil

When I see the ash I always pause
to admire its strong, primitive grace,
its carboniferous-like leaves,

those impressions I might find
in a piece of coal.
And when I stand underneath,

placing my palm on the grooved bark,
I think of Woden
who hung himself here in a tempest,

like a questioning proto-Christ,
intent on finding answers. The runes.
I rest my spine against the bole,

asking the energy to flow through
as I gaze up into the blue,
dappled through countless greens.

But I find no runes strewn hereabouts,
no answers at all,
merely a branch snapped off in a storm.

I will take it home to carve and to care,
before setting out once more
to taste this electric air.

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011