An Eye for Eternity: Rune Music


Still Life by Evert Collier, 1675

“The Truth was there already to be true.”  — W. H. Auden, “The History of Truth”

by Peter Dreyer (February 2022)

 

Rune Music

 

I slide into the future with both feet.

Action I’d prefer, not passivity—

but passivity’s a rite of age,

and I’m at that latter stage.

 

So what is it, then, I go to greet?

How can I turn the turning page?

I’ll meet it when I’ve escaped my cage,

an ape en route to eternity.

 

Note: The poet W. H. Auden believed himself to be of Norse (Icelandic) descent; in legend, to gain knowledge of the Runic alphabet, the Norse (and more broadly Germanic) god of poetry and seers, Odin, sacrifices one of his eyes.

 

Table of Contents
_____________________________

Peter Richard Dreyer is a South African American writer. He is the author of A Beast in View (London: André Deutsch), The Future of Treason (New York: Ballantine), A Gardener Touched with Genius: The Life of Luther Burbank (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; rev. ed., Berkeley: University of California Press; new, expanded ed., Santa Rosa, CA: Luther Burbank Home & Gardens), Martyrs and Fanatics: South Africa and Human Destiny (New York: Simon & Schuster; London: Secker & Warburg), and most recently the novel Isacq (Charlottesville, VA: Hardware River Press, 2017).

Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast

image_pdfimage_print

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

New English Review Press is a priceless cultural institution.
                              — Bruce Bawer

Order here or wherever books are sold.

The perfect gift for the history lover in your life. Order on Amazon US, Amazon UK or wherever books are sold.

Order on Amazon, Amazon UK, or wherever books are sold.

Order on Amazon, Amazon UK or wherever books are sold.

Order on Amazon or Amazon UK or wherever books are sold


Order at Amazon, Amazon UK, or wherever books are sold. 

Order at Amazon US, Amazon UK or wherever books are sold.

Available at Amazon US, Amazon UK or wherever books are sold.

Send this to a friend