*****

Recorded Reading (9:03): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jz4ktbxhb21x26fmq18xf/Companion-in-Arms.mp3?rlkey=7qdcg2gdsbpg86epvkanqavut&dl=0

*****

Companion in Arms

Someone saw her stellar rise
Someone saw her tragic fall
He became both sad and wise
As he watched it all

Joan of Arc was but a girl
Fifteen careless summers old
When her destiny unfurled
Adventurous and bold

Angel voices beckoned her
Her beleaguered nation save
To her priest she then refer
He said to her, “Be brave!”

Centuries have passed since then
It’s hard for us to know
How things really happened when
She left her village home to go

To the noble palace of
A grand Marquis nearby
There her sacred mission prove
Receive permission it to try

For she require an escort would
To gain access to the Prince
Whom, to make her mission good,
She must then convince

When she came the Marquis to
Fuss was made, the people say —
For good reason, too, because
His hens refused to lay

Till that noble acquiesce
To the escort that she beg
When again his palate bless
Breakfast with an egg!

Hearing of her near approach
Thinking fun at her to poke
That Prince his courtier then coach
In a royal little joke

He took his crown of jewels off
And his surcoat, rich as well,
And his pointed shoes he doff
Till no one might tell

Which the lord and which the mere
Vassal to his sov’reign state
To a stranger might appear —
Which the servant, which the great?

Without any hesitation
Our man watched her cross that room,
Lost in awestruck admiration
Joan of Arc’s soon-to-be groom,

Mentor and companion
First dedicated moment from
Through triumph and through tragedy
In the hellish days to come

His name, reverentially
Recorded is in history
Dunois: the man who’d prove to be
At her side, unstintingly

Giving all his energy
To the good she served
Nor departing chastity
From righteousness unswerved

Until she’d been abandoned by
Everybody that might be
Except this one, who stood her by
So unflinchingly

Her last agonized glance, barely
Three years later destined be
Companion still in suffering
And in disgrace — staunch he

That afternoon he could not know,
As she crossed their Prince unto,
How far the two of them would go
What travesties together view

He but beheld a woman
Unlike any he had ever seen
His soul became more human
His heart became more keen

As happens to those well prepared
In the presence of
The innocent and holy
Who rise the standard to of love

Joan tapped the Prince, disguised or not,
Upon his shoulder and
Suggested that perhaps he ought,
If he wished to understand

The nature of her being,
Urgency of call,
Accuracy of seeing,
Accompany her to the wall

Where she calm proceeded to
Murmur something in his ear
Caused him instant her unto
Grant approval clean and clear

We know not what she said to him
And we never shall
History at careless whim
Reveals or shadows all…

Then she donned her armor
And cut off her hair
No one dared to harm her
For Dunois was always there

With her rallying the troops
Beside her in the van
Each battle on which all their hopes
Ended and began

The enemy was routed
Thanks to Joan’s good strategy
Chroniclers have touted
In warfare, her ability

To plan for unexpected
And bizarre contingency,
Potentials corrected
Before disaster be

He watched her leave her tented bed
And ride the dead among
Her gaze miserably ahead —
So lovable, so young!

Dismounting amid those were slain 
Friend and enemy both by
She paused their staring eyes to close
Then sank, among them, down to cry

Dunois, Dunois, how did your heart
Ever stand the strain
Allow you play comforter’s part
In the stark face of her pain?

Then, when she’d been victorious
Successful saving of her land
Her future looking glorious
Defeated was she by the hand

Of her own well loved countrymen
Who saw her as a threat
A bad example to their women
Uppity might get

So she was captured by a friend
Proven to be liar
Delivered up to meet her end
At enemy hand, by fire

They took away her trousers
And they jailed her in a skirt
And that’s when she found out
About men the darkest dirt

For when they sensed available
Opportunity
With a woman unable
To defend her chastity

Justice went right by the board 
Along with honor and
All shreds of human decency
Dismissed right out of hand

When, after they had tortured her,
She weakened to recant
And falseness of her role aver,
To be informed she can’t,

For the remainder of her days,
Venture out a door
To where the sun with shadow plays —
She then their pardon proud abhor

She tore up her confession
“Burn me, then,” she said
They leapt on that profession
And they went right ahead

“Return me to my Father,”
She declared that court unto,
“My place is somewhere other
I have naught to do with you.”

Nineteen years old, they took her to
The stake piled high, menacingly
Those that tragic walk who view
Report they none too gentle be

And right beside her, all the way,
Before her at the end
Caught in the trap of hist’ry’s play
Walked brave Dunois, her friend

Still there, when every other man
Melted had away
For it’s a rare companion can
Conscientious stay

In face public opinion of
Through being called a fool —
The helpless witnessing of love
Could not that fire cool

And walk away, event’ually,
Is what he had to do
Wondering desperately
How he could bring himself unto

The prospect of continual
Existence throughout life
Without the sublimated romance
Her he would have made his wife

It might have been some comfort
When he given was to learn
That though to fuel they’d had resort
Her heart — it would not burn

After three days’ trying
Local legends say,
All of which Dunois spent crying,
They threw that unburnt heart away

One hopes that in a future life
Companions met again
And Joan at last became the wife
Of such a treasured friend

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code 72D-31S. It will take about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

If you receive a false page telling you that link is inoperative, please take a picture of your screen and send it to the poet.

Thank you for supporting quality in the fine arts