\u201cNow, tell me one difference,\u201d my sister says,
\n\u201cbetween Old English and New English.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, Old English has a word for our kind
\nof people: ofermod, literally<\/p>\n
\u201covermind,\u201d or \u201coverheart,\u201d
\nor \u201coverspirit,\u201d often translated<\/p>\n
\u201coverproud.\u201d When the warrior Byrhtnoth,
\noverfool, invited the Vikings<\/p>\n
across the ford at Maldon to fight
\nhis smaller troop at closer range,<\/p>\n
his overpride proved deadlier
\nthan the gold-hilted and file-hard<\/p>\n
swords the poet gleefully describes \u2014
\nand aren\u2019t we like that, high-strung<\/p>\n
and ofermod as our daddy and granddaddies
\nand everybody else<\/p>\n
in our stiff-necked mountain town,
\nalways with something stupid to prove,<\/p>\n
doing 80 all the way to the head of the holler,
\nweaving through the double lines;<\/p>\n
splinting a door-slammed finger
\nwith popsicle sticks and electrical tape;<\/p>\n
not filling out the forms for food stamps
\nthough we know we qualify.<\/p>\n
Sister, I\u2019ve seen you cuss rivals,
\nteachers, doctors, bill collectors,<\/p>\n
lawyers, cousins, strangers
\nat the red light or the Walmart;<\/p>\n
you start it, you finish it,
\nyou everything-in-between-it,<\/p>\n
whether it\u2019s with your fists,
\nor a two-by-four, or a car door,<\/p>\n
and it doesn\u2019t matter that your foe\u2019s
\nstronger, taller, better armed.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t tell a soul when I\u2019m down
\nto flour and tuna and a half-bag of beans,<\/p>\n
so you\u2019ve not seen me do without
\njust to do without, just for spite<\/p>\n
at them who told us,
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a sin to be beholden.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re Byrhtnoth
\nlying gutted on the ground,<\/p>\n
speechifying at the troops he\u2019s doomed,
\nthen I\u2019m the idiot campaigner<\/p>\n
fighting beside his hacked-up lord
\ninstead of turning tail,<\/p>\n
insisting, \u201cMind must be the harder,
\nheart the keener, spirit the greater,<\/p>\n
as our strength lessens.\u201d
\nNow, don\u2019t that sound familiar?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve bought it all our lives
\nas it\u2019s been sold by drunkards,<\/p>\n
bruisers, goaders, soldiers,
\nbraggers with a single code:<\/p>\n
you might be undermined, girl,
\nbut don\u2019t you never be undermod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNow, tell me one difference,\u201d my sister says, \u201cbetween Old English and New English.\u201d Well, Old English has a word for our kind of people: ofermod, literally \u201covermind,\u201d or \u201coverheart,\u201d or \u201coverspirit,\u201d often translated \u201coverproud.\u201d When the warrior Byrhtnoth, overfool, invited the Vikings across the ford at Maldon to fight his smaller troop at closer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-poetry","tag-old-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}