While attending an old friend’s birthday party, the muse of poetry struck me a glancing blow and I dashed out this sonnet, imagining perhaps a different sequence of events taking place from what actually occurred in our timeline. Any errors in orthography or good taste are solely my own. I was working from fragmentary Algonquin wordlists. As a final note, the above image was evidently used as the basis for 17th-century depictions of Opechancanough but in actuality is a painting of a fellow from what is now North Carolina.
No warning-bells disturb the Sunday peace, The word of warning simply not passed down To any in the field or in the town, Then shouts ring out — a startled flock of geese Takes flight. Emerging from the nearest wood A boiling mass in panoply of war Come now to bear the news forevermore That Opechancanough is out for blood.
Turn out! Too late. Peya quagh acquintan Uttasantasough? I think somehow That Tsenacommacah shall never now Be subject to a foreign king’s decree. And something more than water now is drawn By old Virginia’s rivers to the sea.
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