Winifred Hodge Rose
A poem to honor the love between the Goddess Sif, who is often considered a Goddess of the grain, among other things, and her husband Thor, a God of thunder and lightning, whose energies ripen the grain for harvest. The harvest of ripened grain is their gift to humans (‘bairns’, in my poem), but also portends their seasonal parting, as the energies of Sif that are represented in the grain are cut down. She then sleeps under the snow until awakened again in the spring by Thor’s thunder. This poetic depiction of Sif gives only one aspect of her manifold being; many Heathens do not see her as a seasonal grain-Goddess, but in quite different ways. This symbolic perspective of her, however, is one that works well for a love-song! I believe, and experience myself, that our Gods can each take on many forms and meanings, and should not be plugged into rigid categories, any more than people should be!
Winter: Thor’s Lament
Your golden hair is shorn, my Sif,
Your head wimple-wrapped.
Robed and veiled in white
You dream the winter nights.
Frigid wind shifts snow-crystals
Hushing over hummocks,
Sounding like wind in your hair.
Winter: Sif’s Dreams
Thor keeps troth, his heart of living oak
Is solid and true, well worth loving.
Spring: Sif Awakens
Feels good to stretch and wake;
Rain is chill, but thaws the Earth.
I hear the first echoes
Of Thor’s thunder over the mountains.
He’s laughing now, it’s good to hear him!
He’s coming closer, I hope he remembers…
My shoots are young and tender,
Just a pinprick
Of green above the mud….
Thor, you lummox, you’re doing it again!
You’ll squash me flat–every spring
It’s like this! Take it easy, love,
Abate your force. Couldn’t we try
A gentle rain, for once?
Summer: Thor’s Song
Land lies yearning under Sun’s caress,
Grain glints and glistens in waves of wind.
I run my fingers through your hair
And hear your hushing whispers,
Hoarse with passion.
Ah! My Sif,
Even the wide plains,
Even Middle Garth’s broad reaches,
Even Ase’s Garth itself,
Cannot hold our love enclosed.
Summer: Sif’s Song
I move beneath your hand,
A hand like no other.
Thunder pulses through your touch,
Heat lightning flashes,
Limning my bones with fire.
The storm’s roar engulfs me,
I am swept away, I know not whither,
Nor care to know, Vingi-Thorr:
I am with you.
Harvest: Farewell
Thor: Golden my beloved, ripe under Sun’s glow.
Buzz and drone of chafer’s wings
Echo the honing of scythe on stone.
A last breath of wind through your hair, my Sif,
Ere wind’s hush betoken
Your tresses’ fall
Under the sickle’s hooked gleam.
Sif: So bairns’ blessing
Is love’s bane, and love’s gift:
Blessing, bane, and gift are one.
Both: Golden was love,
Gold will it be again,
While Wyrd wends.
Written sometime in the mid-1990s.