Saint Ursula of Llangwyryfon
Picked offhand by the angels to demonstrate
for Christ; little she-bear Ursula, saint
perhaps of some monstrous forgotten faith,
mother-goddess turned virgin or just a girl
afraid to marry a handsome pagan?
In Claude's picture you are already crowned
in thin gold, you stand calm, your girls
shoulder each other eagerly out of church
down the stone steps (what are those bows and arrows
for if not to foretell your martyrdom
by a brute's arrow in splendid Cologne?)
to the fine-sparred ships, the unregarding
stevedores, to the classic water and
the trip to death. Your bones lie abroad
and here where I think you lisped Latin
where you feared marriage and rough Saxon ways
where my forebears trimmed stone in your honour
and an arch by one of them is a local wonder,
does anyone else think of you as the cracked peal
of the bell of your Church of the Virgins
twists and dies up the pilgrim route through the still
Sunday air past the abandoned houses
to a ridge that looks over to Enlli
from old stones over the bear-god's valley?
Picked offhand by the angels to demonstrate
for Christ; little she-bear Ursula, saint
perhaps of some monstrous forgotten faith,
mother-goddess turned virgin or just a girl
afraid to marry a handsome pagan?
In Claude's picture you are already crowned
in thin gold, you stand calm, your girls
shoulder each other eagerly out of church
down the stone steps (what are those bows and arrows
for if not to foretell your martyrdom
by a brute's arrow in splendid Cologne?)
to the fine-sparred ships, the unregarding
stevedores, to the classic water and
the trip to death. Your bones lie abroad
and here where I think you lisped Latin
where you feared marriage and rough Saxon ways
where my forebears trimmed stone in your honour
and an arch by one of them is a local wonder,
does anyone else think of you as the cracked peal
of the bell of your Church of the Virgins
twists and dies up the pilgrim route through the still
Sunday air past the abandoned houses
to a ridge that looks over to Enlli
from old stones over the bear-god's valley?
for Christ; little she-bear Ursula, saint
perhaps of some monstrous forgotten faith,
mother-goddess turned virgin or just a girl
afraid to marry a handsome pagan?
In Claude's picture you are already crowned
in thin gold, you stand calm, your girls
shoulder each other eagerly out of church
down the stone steps (what are those bows and arrows
for if not to foretell your martyrdom
by a brute's arrow in splendid Cologne?)
to the fine-sparred ships, the unregarding
stevedores, to the classic water and
the trip to death. Your bones lie abroad
and here where I think you lisped Latin
where you feared marriage and rough Saxon ways
where my forebears trimmed stone in your honour
and an arch by one of them is a local wonder,
does anyone else think of you as the cracked peal
of the bell of your Church of the Virgins
twists and dies up the pilgrim route through the still
Sunday air past the abandoned houses
to a ridge that looks over to Enlli
from old stones over the bear-god's valley?
Picked offhand by the angels to demonstrate
for Christ; little she-bear Ursula, saint
perhaps of some monstrous forgotten faith,
mother-goddess turned virgin or just a girl
afraid to marry a handsome pagan?
In Claude's picture you are already crowned
in thin gold, you stand calm, your girls
shoulder each other eagerly out of church
down the stone steps (what are those bows and arrows
for if not to foretell your martyrdom
by a brute's arrow in splendid Cologne?)
to the fine-sparred ships, the unregarding
stevedores, to the classic water and
the trip to death. Your bones lie abroad
and here where I think you lisped Latin
where you feared marriage and rough Saxon ways
where my forebears trimmed stone in your honour
and an arch by one of them is a local wonder,
does anyone else think of you as the cracked peal
of the bell of your Church of the Virgins
twists and dies up the pilgrim route through the still
Sunday air past the abandoned houses
to a ridge that looks over to Enlli
from old stones over the bear-god's valley?
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.