Zweeloo woman
Aalder Veld arid heath fields
province of Drenthe salt marshes
morass, wetlands,
inhabiting sand dunes
peat digger piling up blocks:
carried with it
an ominous white moon
muddy tidal Waddenzee
naked in a foetal position
hidden beneath plaggen soil
a Dutch bog mummy
cursed with dwarfism
short bowed forearms
and lower legs
thirty-five when I died
throttled with a rope
made of animal sinew
hair red, left handed
the bones of my feet
still inside a sandal
second century AD
that lonely place
my last meal
unhusked millet
wild blueberries
carried with it, evil spirits
my mother Antje’s
spindle to spin wool
a loom to weave cloth
holding the living
afterbirth of earth
with creases in clay
polders and windmills.
Zweeloo woman by Ilona Martonfi is a Blasted Tree original poem