​Nearly a thousand years have passed
Since my cruel husband
And our wolfish sons
Burned the lovely Loire valley
In their infernal lust
For land and castles and crowns.
 
What would I have done
If the tower where the proud Plantagenet kept me prisoner
Had caught on fire?
Nineteen years in captivity
Seem like an easy dream
Compared to the horrors
Of these walls of flame,
Toppling giant and ancient trees
Higher than the battlements of Poitiers.
At least in my imprisonment,
I was allowed to pray
And to spend hours, indeed years,
In reflection.
 
Will these forests in this strange land
Near the eastern sea
Be resurrected from the ashes,
Filled again with odd tall pines,
Exotic crested quail and
Larks singing like troubadours?
At least the dark angels of wildfire
Are kinder than the demons of war.
I would have welcomed the flames to my tower
In exchange for the carnage
My husband and sons have wrought.