Tattoo

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To link up with this week's Three Word Wednesday *Click Here*

This week's words:

Calm; Know; Rattle

Wonderful. All three words are ancient, coming to us from an English that was mostly unwritten. If we heard the language spoken, it would sound so unlike English as to give one pause. One of the words is so ancient that it can be associated with a word in Sanskrit as well as several other languages quite distant from English. That means it holds its basic form (though with broad variation) all the way from the root language that gave birth to our Indo-European language family. In other words, we know as we have known for a very long time, literally five thousand years and longer. All three words are old enough that they did not enter English in the broad streams of Latin and French which are the sources of so much of our language. Ancestors of these three words were already in use on the Celtic Island of Britain when the Romans first appeared there.

Tattoo

I stand in the calm
before it all happened here,
happened as I know,
happened, and I'll be
soon entombed by the distant
rattle of sorrowing spears
banging tribal shields
in thirst for the blood
of old enemies.
The ancient conflicts
persist in my bones.
I have painted my face blue.

October 17, 2012 5:58 AM

Note: Tattoo is not only skin painting. It is also military music, and can refer to the sound of bugles and drums, especially as a warning for the approach of day's end, a music sounded prior to taps.