Traditional meaning: ulcer, torch
Meanings when upright:
Meanings when inverted:
Kenaz can be useful for:
Anglo-Saxon rune poem:
Cen byþ cwicera gehwam, cuþ on fyre
blac ond beorhtlic, byrneþ oftust
ðær hi æþelingas inne restaþ.
The torch is known to every living man by its pale, bright flame;
it always burns where princes sit within.
Norwegian rune poem:
Kaun er barna bo,lvan;
bo,l gørver nán fo,lvan.
Ulcer is fatal to children;
death makes a corpse pale.
A modern poem:
The three strains
of blood
that run
in my veins
I'm not sure
how to balance,
precarious
in ability to be lured
to act against my better will,
to with claws or jagged sharps destroy
what I with my power would rather employ
to birth this world, to with gentler things fill.Through the Veil made a careful incision
to cast off my mental fog's saddle
and declare, "You and I are palm pals,"
only our hands sketched in my vision
until the world came back flooding
and the Veil bade you scream goodbye
and vow to come back a later time
even closer to me.
Not this rune you presented
but others, half inverted
to explain the meaning
I could not myself perceive:"If the roots at the very bottom of Yewiffe
are memories bitter and repressed,
then what bright futures, what shared nests
lie nestled at the top of its canopy?I'd gladly spend the rest of my life
keeping you rational and in your own skin,
safe and sound, tranquil, peaceful within
if together in one of those branches we reside."I don't know what I ever did to deserve
this light in the darkness, impassioned words,
but it I have somehow earned,
my lilac spring, my fierce godsend.Look at my friends,
my allies,
the love of my life:I was never really alone,
was I?