{"sf1_id":1719495,"sf2_id":"3eg9K6nY","title":"Ragnarok - XVIII","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":2222,"posted_at":"2021-05-18T17:49:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1719495-ragnarok-xviii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/3eg9K6nY","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/29/49/2949af0a-f52a-43c1-8153-c3399deb66d4","description":"#19 of Ragnarok\n\nShane finds himself on the path outside the world.\nThis is was by far the easiest part of the entire poem to write. \"Truncated descriptions of momentary glimpses into fantasy worlds\" could easily have been stretched out to a hundred pages just by itself.\nDoes anyone else remember this fairy tale? A poor mother who works as a baker and goes home with fragments of dough stuck to her hands, which she makes into gruel to feed her child. The rich mother for whom she works becomes jealous--that her child Has Food At All, I guess--and forces her to wash her hands when she leaves. At which point the twelve Apostles appear and give her a basket, with the standard-issue folklore prohibition that she can't look inside till she gets home. She takes it home, looks inside, and it's miraculous riches. And then the jealous rich woman hears about this, she goes and seeks out the Apostles herself, demands the same thing. They give her a basket, with the same prohibition, she peeks on the way home and it's a venomous snake that bites her and she dies. I remember it very clearly, obviously, but I don't remember a title and I couldn't find, at the time, any source or reference to it. I have no idea where I heard it.","content":"As does a man who from an areoplane\n\nLeaps for heart-stopping sport hang for the half,\n\nHalf-second that his heart is stopped, and sees\n\nThe world spread out below, amid the clouds,\n\nAnd wheeling slowly, like the stars at night,\n\nUntil gravity finds its grip again,\n\nSo somewhere it was somewhere, and above\n\nA myriad of what he could not tell,\n\nAs glittering jewels clustered too close\n\nTo tell one from the next by aught but touch,\n\nA figure floated, falling through the black\n\nThat slowly was pushed back by radiance\n\nFrom that which shone below, as winter night\n\nIs abjured by a throng of colored lights.\n\nSomewhere it was nowhere, but below\n\nWas somewhere, and as he toward somewhere fell\n\nThrough nowhere, the slow light around him spread\n\nAnd made him no mere figure, but again\n\nBoxer and Champion and his own self.\n\nSomewhere there were somewheres, for as Shane\n\nThe shining facets reached at last, he saw\n\nIn each a world, as one sees rooms, along\n\nA railway car at night, through lit windows:\n\nEach glimpsed a moment in its true essence,\n\nThen only afterimage burning out.\n\nShane turned, to ask the girl where all these were,\n\nBut she was gone, and where how could he guess?\n\nSo all alone he tumbled through a throng\n\nOf momentary glimpses of some time\n\nAnd place, somewhere somewhen. He saw a shore\n\nWhere to the waves thin men in cowls brought glass\n\nIn wagonloads, in fragments, in the mist,\n\nShards of green bottles, pale brown jugs, and heaps\n\nOf ice-like crystal shards of windowpane,\n\nWith here and there a rare and costly flash\n\nOf crimson, royal purple, deep lapis\n\nLazuli, from a chapel window, like\n\nThe gems deep-hoarded by the jealous hills.\n\nBefore the sunrise, these they cast into\n\nThe churning surf, to roll between its huge\n\nAnd grinding fingertips. Then as they turned\n\nTo take their empty burdens back up to\n\nThe cloistered moor, the dawn distantly broke\n\nAnd through a crack of clouds a single ray\n\nInstantly made the whole beach blaze with light\n\nRefracted from the centuries of glass\n\nPolished by tides to pebbles, to fine sand.\n\nThey hummed old chants, gently, each to himself\n\nAs the thinning sea mist was washed back. And-\n\n-Beneath a pile of arches, tiered upon\n\nEachother like a wedding cake gone mad\n\nTo trebled trebled layers, but each arch\n\nHigh vaulted near enough to fit a whole\n\nHimalaya through it, and only graze\n\nThe edges barely, sprawled a heap of vines,\n\nBeside the gothic points no more than grass\n\nBut to the awe-drowned band that stood beneath\n\nHigher than redwoods. Each looping trunk trailed,\n\nAs some primeval angel, drunk and dumbed\n\nOn beatific visions crafts a sham\n\nAnd shabby imitation of the bliss\n\nHe sees above, beyond, and makes a world,\n\nSo did the vines in twisting ape the vaults,\n\nMake arches in disorder. There instead\n\nOf glazing or mosaic on the domes\n\nOf creamy marble higher than the sky\n\nThe vines bore leaves twice wider than a man\n\nAnd pale transparently in every rich\n\nSad color of autumn. The tint spread down\n\nAcross the wondering pioneers, as they\n\nTook shelter from the gentle thunderstorm\n\nWedged underneath the clerestory. And-\n\n-Among the first few fitful snowflakes came\n\nA mother dressed in what were almost rags\n\nOut of the frosty leafless garden, through\n\nThe maze of cobblestones, to the attic\n\nWhere her three children waited, like martyrs\n\nIn silent dungeons taste apocalypse,\n\nTheir anointed's return, and a new earth.\n\nAll day, each day, she toiled to feed the child\n\nOf some other woman, who heeded not\n\nThe cries of anybody's children, but\n\nLeft at the day's end a single gold piece\n\nThat meant another day of shelter, that\n\nMeant coal upon the stove, meant shoes, meant milk,\n\nAnd to go with that milk she carried too\n\nThe strands of dough still clinging to her hands\n\nFrom long day's kneading into others' bread\n\nHer own brow's sweat. She hurried homeward. And-\n\n-In the close smoky darkness, sudden shocks\n\nOf thunder squeezed into a sole second\n\nMoved closer by a half inch at a time.\n\nDown in a muddy hole, a company\n\nIn uniforms once innocent of mud,\n\nIn bodies once unmarked by weariness,\n\nIn souls once confident they could endure\n\nAll wars, all battles, and to ripe old age\n\nRemain unscathed, passed round a flask, then drew\n\nTheir battered weapons. The next impact threw\n\nDirt over them like the grave's first handful\n\nAs they climbed to their feet. The smoke cleared, and-\n\n-In gilded windows, as the water pools\n\nUpon each shell-like tier of the fountain,\n\nSo pooled there light, music, and glimmering,\n\nAnd memory of warm rich scents on nights\n\nNigh infinite in twilight and good cheer.\n\nThe beams glanced out through empty space beneath\n\nThe isle on which the palace sat, drifting\n\nSo high above the clouds that men below\n\nMight take it for a comet. Inside, there\n\nWere paper lanterns strung like luminous\n\nPale melons on the vine, or little moons,\n\nAnd perfumed wines, and glint of pearl and gold,\n\nBut no laughter. The music was not glad.\n\nThe perfume in the wine was bittersweet.\n\nEven as those within drank their last pledge\n\nAnd the musicians played cathartic hymns\n\nThe floor shook. All the lights went out. Tremors\n\nRattled the glasses and the high windows.\n\nWith fearful groans the island listed. And-\n\n-Beneath a hurricane, a splintering ship\n\nRolled back and forth between mountains of sea\n\nAnd on the deck a boy sat, clutching tight\n\nA message in a bottle, fished from some\n\nBarnacle pool, a lashing round his waist\n\nTo hold him to the mast, and eyes wide with\n\nMore fear than human heart can hold, and live.\n\nAround him ropes were flailing, rags of sail\n\nWere by the wind tossed like the ribbons trailed\n\nBy a young maiden dancing on the May.\n\nThe spars were shattered and the hull was cracked,\n\nAnd so absorbed were all the crew against\n\nThe thousand wounds at which the sea poured in\n\nThat only the boy saw, when lightning flashed,\n\nThe thin black figures, whirling on the wind,\n\nWith long, spidery arms and legs, licking\n\nTheir longer fingers through their long teeth. And-\n\n-With a sepulchral snap, the next to last\n\nStick of pale twisted wood was broken, and\n\nCast on the guttering embers of the fire.\n\nIts warm light reached just far enough to paint\n\nThe faces half-asleep around it hunched.\n\nIt reached neither the cave walls, nor the roof.\n\nIt reached not the blank bank of drifted snow\n\nThat stopped up the entrance, and muffled the\n\nWild blizzard's howling into muted moans;\n\nNo more a madness shriek, rather the slow\n\nVibrations, humming through the bone marrow\n\nFrom a finger along a goblet's edge\n\nThat suffocatingly surround, as did\n\nThe dark, the cold, the cave's eternal night\n\nAnd winter springless forevermore. And-\n\n-The slow relentless rhythm of the rain\n\nBeat down upon the shingles and splashed drops\n\nUpon the children's bare feet. From the roof\n\nTheir father passed them one by one into\n\nThe boat that rode against the eves. The dark\n\nAnd muddy water strained against the walls.\n\nThey groaned in drowning protest. Just in time\n\nThe father stepped into the boat, bearing\n\nThe family bible, some photographs,\n\nAnd one surviving seedling from the hills\n\nWhere now their orchards all were drowned. The boat\n\nPushed off into the rain-filled night. The house\n\nWith one last shudder splintered down and splashed\n\nBeneath the newborn sea, to driftwood. And-\n\n-Through a glass bubble, one man watched alone\n\nAs far beneath enough to see the whole\n\nWorld wheeling slowly, the green grainy globe\n\nRolled in its orbit groove between the sun\n\nAnd his pitifully small planet built\n\nOf tinfoil, crystal, wires, and too much hope.\n\nAs night's shadow reached from the world, he could\n\nNow see the sulfur-colored flashes where\n\nOnce had shone cities. All the dim night-face\n\nWas pockmarked with the sudden flares of gun,\n\nOf napalm, missile trail, and cluster bomb,\n\nOf high explosive, and the deeper dark\n\nThat swallowed each. Beyond, he saw the stars.\n\nHis hand was pressed against the glass, but there\n\nWas no more he could do than if it all\n\nWere written in history, and he read.\n\nSo he watched fruitlessly, in fury. And-\n\n-A single dandelion seed, swept up\n\nBy fickle winds far from the friendly plains\n\nTo mountain heights, that since the rock took shape\n\nFrom fire and moltenness eons ago\n\nHad never felt the slightest touch of life,\n\nHad lodged within a hairline crack. Its roots\n\nSo thin as to be two-dimensional\n\nThreaded shallowly through the pressing stone\n\nTo snatch whatever moisture seeped between\n\nRocks in this hard place, ere it froze, faded,\n\nThe moment it touched ground. The leaves were pale\n\nAnd bleached by sun too near and yet too cold.\n\nThe veins stood out like spiderwebs. The tips\n\nAnd edges were curled up like plastic film\n\nUnder a blast of sudden searing air.\n\nThe fronds were like the cloth upon an old\n\nAnd too cheaply made lamp which after years\n\nOf roasting in the paltry radiance\n\nFrom bulb barely sufficient, needs but one\n\nUnconscious touch to fall to nothingness\n\nAnd oily powder that will not wash off.\n\nIt was a twisted, stunted, sorry thing.\n\nBut though the universe entire was turned\n\nTo herbicide against it: the bare rocks,\n\nThe arid peaks, the coldly blistering nights,\n\nThe frigid searing day, the heavy sky,\n\nStill did it bear a lonely flash of gold,\n\nA single ember fallen from the sun,\n\nFor no procreation, for no use, for\n\nNo beauty ever glimpsed by mortal eye,\n\nOnly for the achievement of its end\n\nIt flowered suicidally above\n\nThe world, on its unfriendly, high throne. And-\n\n-So thick upon the stony hills that they\n\nSeemed like an orchard stood a multitude\n\nOf crosses, each with its victim affixed\n\nAnd bleeding, under angry red eclipse.\n\nAnd there were some in robes of innocence,\n\nAnd some in dented armor with the nails\n\nDriven through steel and flesh both. There were some\n\nIn furs and talismans barbaric, some\n\nIn hermit rags and crazed prophetic beards,\n\nAnd some in poet's laurels, some in cloth\n\nOf gold and purple, some in velvet gowns,\n\nAnd some with chains yet hauling at their wrists,\n\nSome old, some young, some only children. Some\n\nSo scarred and scourged they seemed scarcely human,\n\nAnd some in gentle silk, and some in crowns,\n\nAnd some in nothing but their skin. But all\n\nWere whispering through gritted teeth the same\n\nDefiant litany, in harmony\n\nAs the wind rose through their Golgotha. And-\n\n-As one by one the world consuming fires\n\nBurned out among the dark colossal shapes\n\nOf cloud giant and devil wolf, of god,\n\nHero, blackguard, archangel, heretic,\n\nElf, heartless warlock, ghoul, and walking tree,\n\nIce titan, demoness, and dragon: all\n\nNow lying slain and slaughtered, from a grove\n\nOf ash trees, bent and trampled, but alive,\n\nStepped forth a man and woman. They looked out\n\nCautiously, full of wearisome relief,\n\nUpon the plain of Armageddon, now\n\nAlready fading: blood pools turned to lakes,\n\nGigantic corpses turned to grass green hills,\n\nThe pits that thermonuclear hammer\n\nHad gouged now filling up to sighing seas.\n\nThey sat on a high cliff that once had been\n\nA great crusader's helm, looking out at\n\nThe sun's stepdaughter rising from the waves\n\nThat formed where tears innumerable had flowed.\n\nThey shared a meal of apples, bread, and wine.\n\nThe man called his wife Eve, for she would be\n\nThe mother of all living, someday. And-\n\n-The million, million stars so far below\n\nShone from each corner of the concrete heights\n\nAs through the midnight rolled the globe as slow\n\nAs futures inevitable. The lights\n\nStenciled a city's shape onto the black\n\nMaking of all these unrelated lives\n\nA single work of art, that dissolves back\n\nTo nothing as among them you arrive,\n\nThe stars resolved to streetlights, windows, signs.\n\nWhile, in between, the darkness shaped itself\n\nTo towers looming on perspective lines,\n\nA symphony of power, time, and wealth:\n\nUnfeeling stone transformed to feeling by\n\nThe human scores under inhuman sky.\n\nBut as the cityscape all around swelled\n\nIt seemed to blur, as does a painting when\n\nYou stand too close to catch the form, and see\n\nNo painting, only paint. Shane suddenly\n\nFelt round him air, motion, and darkness. In\n\nThe indistinctness he felt his feet touch\n\nThe hard cold of concrete. His ankles swam\n\nIn icy puddle, and the echoes beat\n\nAround his ears from somewhere. Somewhere it\n\nWas dark and dank, like a lost catacomb.\n\nShane followed the echoes, which seemed to pour\n\nAlong the cavern, rushing from their source.\n\nSomewhere he dimly saw an outlined shape\n\nAhead, less dark upon the darkness, like\n\nAn archway. Even as he groped toward it,\n\nIt suddenly was filled with light, and then\n\nA roaring stampede of metal and glass\n\nLit from within by lightning colors charged\n\nAcross the portal past his face. The train\n\nSped away from the boxer, who followed\n\nWith disbelieving steps and slow. He watched\n\nThe rearmost car retreating out the mouth\n\nOf the tunnel, into the pale grey light\n\nOf city overcast and midwinter,\n\nOf somewhere skies were scraped by silhouettes,\n\nThat he had never thought to see again.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1719157-ragnarok-xvii.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1719796-ragnarok-xix.json"}}