Unconquered

                                             --for Joan

Her stroke was a little death-

a sword-thrust severing synapses

leaving her changed

but unaltered.

She has faced this little

giant, this miniature death,

with her courage intact.

She is a knight who

refused to be unhorsed--

her charger, a wheelchair.

She banners herself in the bright

colors of ascendancy and parades

through the on-going days

of her life, victorious. She is a knight

of the Order Phoenix

risen from the smothered

flames of her former words

to a new voice, still valiant,

still errant, still

unconquered.