By Eve Wood
There are seasons to my burning. It started when, as a child, I found a carved wooden horse at the base of a mountain near my village in Domremy. It wasn’t so much a luminous sign as it was a symbol of my yearning, an emissary of freedom and a kind of latent equine fire, a mare at full speed, galloping from my heart into my lungs and out my mouth to form the words “En Avant, hardiment!” Still, I continued burning, unknowing of the original fire — from whence it came, and how it would manifest in the future. Who, exactly was imploring me?
At thirteen, I knew I had been chosen. There were fleeting signs early on, whispered cries of sedition and always the faintest echo of a woman’s voice fanning the flames of my own wild heart. Who was she and what did she want with me? Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of the side of her face, suffused in blue light and always the scent of mandarin when the headaches came. I longed for Jesus, but did He long for me? I could no longer tell. I could no longer distinguish between myself and the flat face of the water where daily I would lower myself, not to bathe, but to be reborn again.
It happened the day I donned my armor to fight for my King and for God. It was prophesied an armed virgin would come forth to save France. I took up the mantle. I stood deep in the lake of blood which once was the Loire River. I wrested my heart from my mind; they had to go their separate ways, and could not thrive together. But it was love that bolstered my courage, and in those moments, I could feel the delicate hand of prophesy. Had Christ forsaken me and left another in HIS place? What was I to do with so much information?
I closed my eyes and when I opened them, it was not Christ who reached through the willow tree to take me, pulling me deep into His arms like a flower welcomes the anxious bee. No, it was something altogether different.
There she was on the uppermost branch, lips parted toward a burgeoning smile meant only for me — Mary, the virgin mother, the extant queen of all, setting the stone of my life in my hands with her own and urging me where to go.
It had never been Christ, but always this sacrosanct woman, virgin to my virgin, lover to my love.
Devine retribution was female! And when the flames rose to my Roman nose, it was the heat of Her body that killed me.
Eve Wood is a Los Angeles-based artist, writer, and art critic. Her writing and poetry have been widely published in magazines and literary journals such as The New Republic, Best American Poetry 1997,The Denver Quarterly, North American Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Santa Monica Review, Poetry, The Seattle Review, and many others. She is the author and/or illustrator of seven collections of poetry and chapbooks, including Remarks on Color (DoppelHouse Press), The Artists’ Prison (X Artists’ Books). Two books of poetry, A Cadence for Redemption (Del Sol Press), and SIX (Cherry Grove), will be re-released by DoppelHouse Press in Spring 2026 in a four-part book with two new collections, The Two V’s and Diane Arbus Goes Shopping.
Artwork: Eve Wood, Joan of Arc, gouache and ink on paper, 2025.
The Nomadic Journal 