of borrowed hours and gray-leaved lore

This borrowed cloak of flesh and bone,

A few brief seasons, then 'tis gone.

The Norns have spun with fingers cold

A tale in threads of gray and gold.

Not ours to choose the length of thread,

But how the woven cloth is spread.

From Ash-Gray Leaves, the runes intone

A truth carved in the standing stone:

"The fourth verse speaks: At every door,

Step lightly, leave a mark, no more.

For none can know, when day is done,

What deeds the fading light hath won."

So let me, in this frost-etched hour,

Not cower in my fleeting bower.

Though Yggdrasil's great roots decay,

And all our suns must end in grey,

I’ll stoke a fire against the night,

A beacon of unruly light.

*"The ninth verse bids: He travels best

Who bears a well-prepared breast."

With horn of mead and heart of oak,

I’ll meet the path the fates evoke,

And trade my breath, before it’s spent,

For some wild, worthy monument.

Not monuments of stone or steel,

But wounds that prove the flesh was real,

A cup shared dry on thirsty ground,

A laughter's echo, richly found.

A name, not writ on tide or shore,

But in the hearts of two or four.

The wolf will run, the world-tree fall,

This is the doom and sum of all.

Yet in the shadow of the beast,

We hold the fleeting, holy feast.

So pour the drink and raise the sound,

While yet our borrowed time is bound.

For as the gray-leaved page doth swear:

"Cattle die, and kinsmen die,

But one thing never dies: the fair

Report that follows a good deed."

That is the only harvest's seed.