The Hammer of ThorA Poem by David Lewis PagetI used to think that thunder was The sound of the Hammer, Thor, He’d beat it up on the clouds above Each time he was waging war, He’d quell his foes with a lightning strike Or drown them all in his rain, Whenever he came along at night His purpose was always pain.
For we lived down in the valley where The tendency was to flood, Whenever the river was swollen with A squirt of his enemy’s blood, We’d have to climb up to higher ground And sit there, soaked to the skin, With lightning flashing around our heads We’d need to pay for our sins.
‘Pay for our sins,’ my father said In a voice that rumbled and roared, He’d pull a hood up over his head And speak to the god called Thor, Then Thor replied with a mighty blast To drown out my father’s cries, As if he answered him there at last, ‘All that you speak are lies!’
While mother sat in a silent weep As often she’d done before, ‘Why did you have to build our house Way down on the valley floor? We would have been safer, further up And still walk down to the stream, To carry a bucket of water up, But all that you do is dream!’
That was his sin, my mother said, He didn’t know black from white, He never looked far enough ahead He didn’t know wrong from right, Dreaming up schemes that failed, it seems Like a prophet, living in dread, That one black night at the river’s height We’d all be drowned in our bed.
‘Not that his bed means much to him,’ My mother would often moan, ‘Not since that gypsy girl, that Kym Stayed in the valley alone, He spends his time in her caravan Drinking her gypsy tea, And letting her hold and read his hand, He never did that with me!’
And so it was on a cold, black night He’d gone to her caravan, ‘Just to check that she’ll be all right,’ He said, just playing the man, The thunder crashed on the mountain top While we prayed, and gave up thanks, To the mighty Thor beating at our door That the river not break its banks.
Lightning flashed though the vale of trees Where she’d parked her gypsy van, And then my mother was on her knees As we heard a mighty bang, For lightning struck at the heart of sin And it set the van ablaze, While both the sinners were trapped within And paid for their sinful ways.
We buried him on the valley floor For my mother said, ‘It’s right. He doesn’t deserve a headstone Nor a grave that’s watertight.’ Whenever the god of thunder calls And the river overflows, I think of my father down below And I wonder if he knows.
David Lewis Paget © 2015 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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