Wind

Today my husband is studying swords

And rediscovering a joy in kennings

As his eye that has no sight

Has finally stopped hurting 

So the other eye can now return

To read, and record, and recognise my face

That I was scared would be forgotten.

As he quotes to me,

‘Incitement of the sorrow of the fence of battle’

I think of the shield ulcer that

Cloaked and covered his eye

His sorrow becoming the repetition

Of eye drops and eye creams

That ensuingly and eventually eroded.

The energy of unseen motion, 

Particles changed by his serpent of wound

Resulting in two pages of beloved

Literature, formal and academic

Emerging rousing and romantic

As I see eyes negotiating the leafs

Unknowingly unforgetting my face.

Incitement of the sorrow of the fence of battle’ taken from 'The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe, Experience, Identity, Representation', by Sue Brunning 2019, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, p.122