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~ By Courtesy of Others ~
Sigyn’s Song
Scorned they call me.
They tried to keep me away.
My heart lies bound, tortured for the truth he spoke.
We knew long ago what would be.
At his birth I knew they would take my son from me.
I was a child myself, to be given such a choice.
Yet I gave willingly, my memories, my pain, my rage
gathered in the alabaster jar I cherish.
They tried to keep me away – final sacrilege, as if I would ever deny my heart-
to drag me from his side when the serpent holding all the fury of Midgard was tied.
They tried.
But how could I leave?
I looked into his eyes.
I looked as he was bound by their fear, by their shame, by their bitter, bitter pain.
I saw the grief. I saw the disappointment that it had come to this.
And I saw the love.
They never did believe how much he loved.
And in loving chose to do what no other would do.
All he ever did came from love.
And a truth, a law so steel bright strong it could never be ignored.
Even we serve the law of the Tree.
I looked into his wounded eyes.
And as my son’s flesh was wrapped about his, I saw his anguish.
How could I leave?
For the first time, I defied them.
I picked up the mask that my husband had so willingly worn,
I held it before me in my heart, and showed them the mirror of blade sharp truth it hid.
For the first time I screamed.
I shrieked through the Tree.
Oathbreakers all, what he spoke was the truth.
What he spoke was the poison reflected back to its source.
For the first time I shrieked and bloodied by what was left of my son,
I gathered, becoming stone, the shreds of my pain.
I sat by his side daring them to tear me away.
They could if they wish forget, they could if they wish desecrate.
But not me.
I stroked his straining cheek. Lips bleeding though silent was he.
I twined my hand in his. And I captured his pain.
Not a cry did he utter, not a tear did he shed, his eyes locked on mine.
And we, each soul torn apart through Ragnarok we live.
We feel. We bleed.
The poison searing my hands as I shield my heart’s face is nothing compared to the grief that we see.
They never saw what gift we bore.
They locked us both away for our treasures are shared between us.
How can there be hope to give when they have tossed it carelessly into a pit of venom?
I will stay by his side. He would not leave me in my pain.
I will be healer to all, Mother of all, for I will be the only one left to heal the gods from their games.
© Galina Krasskova, 2005
First published in “Idunna: A Journal of Northern Tradition” Spring 2001. P. 27