Louis the Pious

- Upamanyu Acharya

Three years of fleeting, inescapable darkness,

Eclipses of sun and  moon;

Espied orange, velvet flames – burning 500 feet long,

The bridge that stood strong, in their memories atleast.

Up in the sky, a streak of red, enveloped in Various shades

of white and blue and orange. A comet, a sign –

The falling of a star that burned forever;

Charlemagne, King of the Franks and the Lombards,

Emperor and Augustus

of the Holy Roman Empire.

Feeble and fragile, he leaned on his heir

The red haired, broad shouldered heir.

Slivers of sunlight smoldered

Through stained-glass windows

Where the oaths and vows were imposed

“To guide the churches of God, and

To defend them against wicked men.

To show unstinting compassion to his sisters

and His younger brothers,

His nephews and all of his kin.”

He kissed the ground, that heir, praying

And the holy men relaying

Vivat imperator Ludovicus

When Louis the Pious arrived in Aix-la-Chapelle

he took care to resolve Charlemagne's will,

He called the clergy and the holy men

Set to promulgate God’s decree on the Carolings.

He drove his sisters, the large mob that they were,

Out to nunneries and estates granted by father.

Uncle Adalhard, Noirmoutiers and Wala to Corbie,

Bernhard to Lerins, and Gundrada to Poitiers.

He sent them all away.

Sons, daughters, siblings and trees.

He began that moral search, with paper in heart

Investigating words and words within words

Seeking the deeper meaning in morals of Aix-la-Chapelle

With hunts for prostitutes and strangers at court

And within brick walls of nobles, and the Jews;

the constantly clinking merchants, and the cacophonic clergy.

The sins in the eyes of God, overseen, omniscient,

Were to be watched by beggars and children

As they were whipped out

One by one,

With lashes in the marketplace.

Vivat imperator Ludovicus

~

This poem is taunting me. Taunting me because I know so little about the French, or the Holy Roman Empire, or really anything that happened before 1066.

If you want, you can read more about Louis, King of Aquitaine (that fairly large duchy in France of which Eleanor of Aquitaine was once Duchess) here, or here, or on Wikipedia, or by emailing Upamanyu and asking him about it. He may never reply, but it's worth a shot.

Upamanyu also has his own blog, on which he writes things that go completely over my head, but seem to be brilliant. You can read it by clicking HERE, (I've written a couple of posts or him too, so see if you can find those) and if you're viewing the desktop version, there are a bunch of icons on the top right that link to his Twitter and various other social media profiles, so follow him on whichever of those you want.

N