POEM TO ÆTHELFLÆD (870 - 917)
Æthelflæd, your breasts are mountains!
the spirit of resistance in you,
how it may never rest, or withdraw, or cease to hope the good hope!
hurry, you matrix of resilience, the patroness of the already dead!
take up your sword, that which kills the norsemen...
hungry storms yawn on the horizon;
the ocean has teeth of steel and vengeance...
Æthelflæd: kiss our swords, for we are weary;
the waves are short and vomitous this dusk,
how they wage a war on the mudrock and the moonstone of our shores;
you, saint, foresee the dark night:
shall the dragons of the north arrive from the heathenlands,
or may we sleep a single hour?
tell us to prepare and we shall die for you.
O Warrioress Queen Æthelflæd,
you are all that you never wanted to be,
yet you are all that you ever could be...
come, you: feel beneath your skin the uprush of wilder, jubilant energies;
shoot the religious phenethylline into your veins;
burst out with war, lead the way, tonight they come:
we can see it in your eyes! tonight, war. And love. For you.
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