The Compaynys of Beestys and Fowleys
after “The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms” written by Juliana Barnes (Berners), 1486, originally credited to a male author
Men didn’t know it was she
a fifteenth century nun
cloistered in an English convent
who scribed with a feather in bastarda blackletter script
the collective names for beasts and fowls.
How did she, this bride of Christ, know of the
murthre of crowes and unkyndenes of ravenes
What kind of company did she keep?
As a young girl did she listen to the
wache of nyghtingalis and charm of goldfinch
learning to sing in God’s choir?
Did she stand on the banks of her country estate
and join the sege of heronnys and gagle of gees
as they took to the sky like angels on wings?
Was her soul bruised by the glorious walk
of the ostentation of peacocks
and the diving romance in a fall of woodcockis?
Did this unusual girl of nature and letters befriend
nest of rabettis and scoff of fysh
before she grew and hid her true self from the
pride of lionys and sculke of foxis?
What company did she keep in that sheltered house
where man does not recognize a woman’s hand?
Atlas
condemned by war
he held up the sky
carrying things
to the end of eternity
in a shopping cart
filled with the world’s belongings,
its squeaky wheels rolled onward
along train tracks and highways
he moved from place to place
seeking home for the unwanted
mumbling on street corners
whispered warnings never heard
until the weight he carried
fell and crushed the earth
and with it, the myth of humanity
Elizabeth McCarthy lives in an old farmhouse in northern Vermont. Retired from teaching, she began writing poetry when the world closed down in 2020. She is a member of the Poetry Society of Vermont and an online poetry group, The Lockdown Poets of Aberdeen, Scotland. Elizabeth has four collections of poetry, The Old House (self-published), Winter Vole (Finishing Line Press, 2022), Hard Feelings (Finishing Line Press, 2024), and Wild Silence (Kelsay Books, 2024).