February 24, 2019

A Poem by Joyce Zephyrin: "A Question"

Joyce Zephyrin is a member of The Last Stanza Poetry Association, the Poetry Society of Indiana, and AFSPS. She is a Hoosier poet, published in Hanover College’s "Hill Thoughts" and the Indiana Voice Journal. Her book of poems, "Shadows on the Land," is available on Amazon. Joyce has worked for many years in libraries, has been a newspaper correspondent, and has also written magazine articles on life in Indiana.





A Question

I am much inclined to think of oddities
Gypsies, pixies, -- even little ditties
But what I want to ask is this:
If the Anglo Saxons had won in 1066
Would our speech now be affected?
Many Anglo Saxon words are now rejected
While we now say “reconnoiter” and “garage”
“Cavalcade,” “marinade” and even “mirage”
If they had won in 1066
Would we instead have then been led
To a different kind of speech?
Would “usual” then be gelwunelic?
Would Elizabeth II, “famous ruler” of our day
Be deemed secean wolde?
Heaven’s name could well be wolenum
And “great courage” known as fremedon.
Leoma or scima could define “a ray of light”
While geweald could be the word for “power and might.”
Surely we’d be speaking a muscular tongue:
The fate of our language on history hung!


Joyce Zephyrin and Peppermint

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