Not by armor and not by
strength but by the spirit
says my friend David
who has studied the Hebrew
to supply the deficiency of a motto
for the Anglo-Saxon heraldric
shield and crest
It is nice
but I prefer
not to be so definitively principled
in this matter
the empty scroll
possibly serves to show
a less limited potential
Azure, a pheon argent
on a border or, eight torteaux,
as Burke’s General Armory
has the shield.
Azure is the background
to the argent, silver, pheon,
a curious device:
an equilateral triangle
resting on its point like a “V”
but gouged out from the top
by the screwlike cone
which has worked its way
two-thirds to the point,
so that the triangle looks
like a big arrow-head
on a stubby pointed spiraled shaft.
This is surrounded by
a border of gold,
and on the border
eight small circles of guiles, I think, a red.
I don’t know
what the eight torteaux mean
but the rest is clear to the open eye.
The crest,
and eagle’s head
erased azure ducally gorged or
holding in the mouth a pheon argent.
An eagle’s head
on an azure background
with a golden crown around its throat
and the silver pheon in its beak.
25 April 1977