For The Maid

One of the more tedious things I encounter when reading blogs is a blogger mentioning or quoting someone, then adding the disclaimer, “Now of course, I don’t agree with everything he/she writes, but this specific thing was profitable…”

This sort of thing strikes me as terribly unmanly. If one doesn’t have the courage to quote or share the work of a particular individual, one should probably just keep quiet. The whiny “Don’t judge me because I quoted someone or read a book by someone who doesn’t dot all of the eyes or cross all of the tees” is a sort of false-humility-cum-virtue-signaling, and I dislike it strongly. It’s the sort of thing that precedes the tearing down of statues and the rewriting of history, and I say the hell with it.

All this by way of introduction to a poem written by a very interesting fellow, the sort of fellow many people would only quote if they could disclaim in the eye-rolling manner described above. The website is here, and the poem I selected is dedicated to my patron saint, Joan of Arc. I found it pleasant and strong. Perhaps some of you will enjoy it.

~ S.K. Orr

La Pucelle [concerning Joan of Arc]

The white-archangel bloomed high along the lane, nodding to young Jehane
as she passed, gentil, complaisant.
A rill ran beside, lambent with summer rains, brown below but wan

above, washing with tourbillons¹
the black woolly rocks. A grey heron, inglenooked in the brook’s yellow hay
eyed her, grimly conscient

of the sound of her sabots on the cakéd earth. Nearer still, the quail des blés²
bowed in hedgerows, hidden
among the stars-of-Bethlehem, la herbe-de-la-saint-Jean³, and la mauve-musquée.⁴

They hunched in their feathery pews, well-ridden
of their normal foxy fears. The virgin’s arrival stopped all chase and chasse⁵
’til the saints be bidden.

Her promenade closed when a dusky warbler brightly warned her of the coming crevasse.
She had sought this moraine
as the appointed place, a wild and wind-blown altar for an almost private mass.

The nimble maid of Lorraine
climbed right down, led by her fauvette ophée⁶, plumuled grey. He warbled
a trilling chant-montagne⁷

to bless this fourre-tout⁸ of the gods, this heap of stone, this mystery-slag unrivalled.
Nothing followed the pair
but the white flowers, turning now to asphodel with calyx lightly pebbled

and patches of campagnon-clair⁹
and clusters of conopode-dénudé,¹⁰ which Jehane did engarland like baby’s breath
in her still-long hair.

She removed the dented clogs for the final climb, her toes cheating death
with subtle purchase of the ledge.
At last she reached the bed, dry and sandy with white shale beneath.

Nearby, tufts of sedge
followed a fine line of water, fed in silvery webs along cavern walls
split like a long-drawn wedge.

The friendly warbler left her now, frightened by his own echoing calls,
replaced by a martinet pâle.
Far quieter, he patrolled with a balsam whisper, master of these low halls.

The little hirondelle¹¹
encircled Jehanne, fashioning her a chaplet-en-air¹² with his wind-sharpened wings,
an implied corolla of the dell

to protect her from all fées-rustique.¹³ Even so, the maid’s silent imaginings
attracted les dieux locaux,¹⁴
waiting through centuries for an honest intention. They prepared their hallowings

like a balefire row,
Michael, Catherine and Margaret in trinal apparition, musing the maid
into a rêve-bateau.¹⁵

The angels clothed her in boucassin-blanc¹⁶ and ciel-bleu,¹⁷ her collar of silk inlaid.
With essence of plum they laved
her hands, and about her feet a bough of musquet-des-bois¹⁸ curled and played.

In the folds of her dress ennaved
were long green needles of cedar and leaves of durmast oak, heavy with signs
that Orleans and Patay would be saved.

At last they cut the woodbines,
freeing Jehane from her bosky boat-of-dreams, and sent her back up to the real.
All that remained were the lines

in her memory, the clear etchings of battle and proof, of providence, signal and seal.
The maid was now of France,
her mind a book the angels would write, her body a sword they would anneal.

With a shy and backward glance
she wondered that Michael and the rest—waylaying her in that heathen deep—
should send her on the road to Rheims

from an enchanted gap of stone. Why not take her in church, or in devoted sleep,
under eaves where all Christendom lay?
Should she henceforth pray under sky and stars, under Sun and Moon, her soul to keep?

But the birds would not say.
Le moineau soulcie¹⁹ was silent; la tourterelle des bois²⁰ only cooed and sighed,
awaiting the end of day.

So she walked back down her road, guarded by dogrose and danewort and pomme-epineuse.²¹
No Dauphin yet spoke of tests,
no Cauchon of trials; only the waking owl, crying in the fields like an earless muse,

warning nobly of the nests
of Englishmen, and of the fourberie²² of priests, and of the blood-singed brevity of all fierce
God-appointed quests.

But Jehane had no mind for the prophecy of owls, Merlin though he be. Let them pierce
her pellucid breast with a dart
or nail her to a Vieux Marché pyre: it would always be her sweet Jhesus who steers

her course and her innocent heart.
Accepting his summons might lead to bitterest pain, but denying would be far worse.
The maid must play her part.

by Miles Williams Mathis

¹whirlpools    ²of the wheat    ³St. John’s wort    ⁴musk mallow    ⁵the hunt    ⁶Orpheus’ warbler, the dusky warbler    ⁷mountain song    ⁸hold-all, junk pile    ⁹campion    ¹⁰naked cone-foot, St. Anthony’s nut    ¹¹swallow    ¹²crown in the air    ¹³field spirits    ¹⁴the local gods    ¹⁵dream-boat    ¹⁶white fustian fabric    ¹⁷sky blue    ¹⁸lily-of-the-valley    ¹⁹rock sparrow    ²⁰turtle dove    ²¹thorn-apple    ²²treachery