Nets to Catch the Wind — Blood Feud

BLOOD FEUD

Once, when my husband was a child, there came To his father's table, one who called him kin, In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.

His look was grave and kind; he bore the name Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile.

Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;

"I've been in the laurel since the winter broke;

Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite a while."

He'd killed a score of foemen in the past, In some blood-feud, a dark and monstrous thing;

To him it seemed his duty.

At the last His enemies found him by a forest spring, Which, as he died, lay bright beneath his head, A silver shield that slowly turned to red.

SEA LULLABY