A Poem About Jeanne d’Arc ( Joan of Arc )

 

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My heart tears down the ramparts of this broken world.

My vision is an arrow piercing the air.

My body given up for heaven 

Is an exile of the earth.

Barely woman, noble soldier,

Tinder for the divine spark to alight; flame on the alter

A stranger crossing a bridge between realms,

I have no place to lay my head.

Under the apple trees in my father's garden

I found the truest I. 

The root, budding into shoot and blooming to a single point

The spire of Domrémy blessed by light.

My mother held me before I left for Orléans.

In fields of wheat I waded 

As if through rivers that flowed 

into an ocean crested by stars.

Far beyond the front lines, 

Mother Mary held me 

in the warm hearth 

of her arms.

The lamp she held 

was a light for my feet in the night.

My standard caught the wind like a sail.

The voice of my kin, 

Became the rustling wind.

Leaves pooled at my feet 

Like small fires 

In damp kindling.

At night I slept in my armour, as if in a tomb.

A homesick child’s tears streaked my face.

Swaddled in a manger like a ship I began to set sail,

To the shores of my true home.

By the time they bound me to a stake

and flames lapped at my flesh

I had  been long consumed

by an older, brighter fire.