# Yr

Traditional meaning: archer

Meanings when upright:

- total focus/flow
- obsessive desire to create
- need to pay close attention to detail
- do the job right the first time

Yr can be useful for:

- studying
- concentrating on the creation of art

Anglo-Saxon rune poem:

> Yr byþ æþelinga and eorla gehwæs
> wyn and wyrþmynd, byþ on wicge fæger,
> fæstlic on færelde, fyrdgeatewa sum.

> Yr is a source of joy and honour to every prince and knight;
> it looks well on a horse and is a reliable equipment for a journey.

There is not a Norwegian rune poem for Yr.

A modern poem:

> English classes have always been to me
> a sort of Sword of Damocles.
> I do what I will, but will it be enough
> to be accepted, or just deemed crude and rough?

> I cannot help the way I write,
> self-taught and shut away from the light
> and having to seek it in the cracks in the walls,
> not big enough for detection but for thriving too small.

> And even though the school doors to me are closed
> and in most days
> I do not hang
> in my father's rage's woes,
> it does not change that my artistic growth
> has been forever marred, twisted, contorted
> into an off-putting and alien shape.

> This aberration
> is all that I am.
> This demonic growth
> is my only hope
> for surviving in this world of men.

> For this world offers no true salvation
> for a woman such as myself.
> Quiet my heart and keep my mouth shut,
> or be locked away in the guise of "mental help":
> what kind of a choice is this?
> Men will see a woman contorting
> to ease the pain of their inflicted torture
> and deem her "insane", "hysterical", "untrustful"
> as an excuse to lock her
> away.

> I want to scream into the heavens
> until my throat is raw.
> I want to tear into a man's throat
> and chew,
> brutally gnaw,
> off the sinews
> connecting skull to maw.
> Now you're the voiceless one,
> mutilated and mute.
> Nothing of value was lost.

> Maybe I am a lost cause,
> but only to being complicit
> in my own desecration.

> Laser focus,
> beast's tunnel vision.
> What say man's heavens
> to a woman who will not be silenced?
> Only a god's hand can strike me down
> now.
> And if he is real, why haven't
> I been smote yet?