Arrows in flight twisting toward the target.
Yellow, red, blue, black and white.
Bow held in a pocket of light
Stillness. Fingers curled tight, eyes still
Skin and nose sensing wind or breeze
Heart kept still, the beat and breath
Calmed and reassured and eye measuring
The distance, stretching, holding.

Did it always feel like that?
Standing in the line at Agincourt
On the walls of Acre after the hours of
Practicing on the village butts,
Listening to men who'd been
Where blood was spilled?
Pulling the shoulders back?
Holding, holding, holding.
Eye and head and body
Breathing like one.

Then release.
Ancient yew snapping shut
Cord and steel, force and power
Coming together in a slender moment.
Power flowing through the air, twisting
And then the satisfactory thud.

A Knight's steel armor pierced
By the peasant with his bow.
Lords and castles tumbling down.
A hierarchy breached.

Yellow, red, blue, black or white

In summer's warmth, a crazy boy snaps his bow
And shoots a grasshopper at twenty feet
And his manhood grows.
Then horse and man as one
Felling the beast for food and shelter on the plains
What stories can you tell?
What bodies pierced? What victories won!

Yellow, red, blue, black or white
A weapon used by men to fight,
Nock, draw, loose.
Its aim we choose
As history awaits the gun.