The history books are full of battlefields—bloodshed
and mud on hills, strewn with lifeless flesh and bone,
failed armor, split shields, weapons without a mark,
anger spent in clearings as ravens gather to call.
The myths of battlefield fill our books—winged horses
gallop and charge through aurora lights, winged
warriors holding banners where ravens omen, to bare
the weight of the murdered and murderers.
The news is full of fields of battle—thick with warriors
fallen and about to fall, men and women serving
in wait for us to choose that embrace, to carry them
within the beating wind of our wings and lift up.
The homes are a field of battle—living rooms
adorned with false comfort, plush chairs, side tables
and coasters, bodies settled into a suffocated repose,
blood seething skin, ruddy with choked temper.
The battles are full of witnesses—aloft in the space
between land and sky, we see the unending melee
and understand the cost. We are, after all, women,
winged beasts, executors of fate, valkyries.
The fields will forget the battles—the land golden
as Valhalla, every brave and useless death
feeding the weeds, blood nurturing root and stem
as we nurture myth and tale, our falling shadow.