Idun and Bragi

In the Old Norse mythology of my ancestors,
Idun holds as high a place of importance as any,
though few people now know why.
She both owned and dispensed the fruits
that imparted immortality to the gods of Asgard.
Without Idun, the gods would no longer sustain
never ending life and power.

How appropriate, then, that she was also the wife
of Bragi, court poet and minstrel who chronicled
the lives of the gods. For the Norse,
writing also imparted a form of immortality.
Their Viking descendants were known to leave
ancient graffiti, secret carvings depicting
their runic names in places that might never be seen.

A Viking father of long ago inscribed a standing
stone with spiraling runes describing the life
of his deceased son and his valiant death in battle
in the hope that by so doing, his son might never
actually die. We speak of him still, and so still he lives.
And now here I sit, a sister to Idun and Bragi, scribbling my name,
staking my claim, to a longed for form of immortality.