THE BICKER WOMEN .. .

Who wears best this shawl of uncertainty
  whose mind is trained of fears furrow
to bow at noon – the bells of the Angelus
  when blackened clouds of hell descend
around the fair shoulders of the puissant
  burnished shields adorn their defence
within realms of hope and trial, honour gracious
  worn heavy-knit her skin battles fields of care
for tis’ only soldiers that do not wonder 
  who were the authors of their answered prayer

and the Bicker women
  not cultural stereotypes or
  horror film characatures
  taken from some ancient, dusty books
  not plastic, elastic bimbos
the Bicker women 
  local born and bred 
born to Bicker
  who live long in Bicker 
  lives until the ‘she’ is dead
  her splayed black dress 
  her woolen scarf 
  wrapped around her head
  she speaks few words 
  yet kneels to pray
Bicker woman 
  of highest feminine degree
  who went to school at age of five 
  with childhood peers, all years
  her teacher aged 
  much talked of life
Yet no one teaches Bicker woman
  how to be an honest wife
  it is inbred, assumed by sight
  the law of wolves and nature
  understanding, words unsaid

Conscripts travel to their debt
  fair soldiers of regret they line 
the fields of shame, those fit, healthy
  will remain after nights of sordid pain
have robbed their mothers of their love
  none revive yet memory keeps all alive 

and there the Bicker woman
  dressed in morbid black
  her body no less fragile
  her beauty rests beneath her shroud
  of shapely legs and cuni
  her chest adorned of breasts 
she is not an animal to scorn
  or mount within the farmers field
Bicker woman
  made of sterner stuff
  not given to the vagaries of snuff
  or perfumed trinkets
Bicker woman
  the least and last to bicker
  or to gossip or to blather 
  she has no time for sentimentality
  or lust of thought
  she is happy with her lot

The guardian angels who return
  carry their dead and wounded
Jerusalem hath fallen for today
  there are animals now in trail 
who carry broken boys to their
  mothers for burial or for death

but then the Bicker women
  collecting souls from the glen
  where lie generals spent forces
  dead and dying in the heather
tragedy haunts the Bicker women
  their smiles as gentle as their dead

©edenbraytoday06.10.2022