DISCLAIMER: This is an unauthorized work of fiction using characters that
are (c) & TM by Marvel Comics Group. No profit is being made on this poem,
so I'll invoke The Marvel Readers' Bill of Rights (for the full text see
"Stan's Soapbox" in some of the May 1998 comics, e.g. GENERATION X #38):
"8. The right to practice scripting and drawing our Marvel characters for
your own pleasure and amusement."
The poem is (c) Tilman Stieve (Menshevik@aol.com) 2001. You can download
this and copy it for your entertainment, but don't sell it for profit, or
Marvel will set their lawyers on you. Please do not archive this on your
website without informing me first.
_The Raven and the Oriole_ belongs to my series, the _Tales of the Twilight
Menshevik_, where it fits both into the main timeline (and thus to its
continuation into the future, the _Days of Future Twilight_) and the
_Twilight Yet to Come_. You can find the Tales archived on "Fonts of Wisdom"
(http://home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/), "Down-Home Charm" (
http://alykat.hispeed.com/rogue), "MissyRedX: The Average Website" (
http://missyredx.phpwebhosting.com/index.htm), and "Stacy's Fan-Fiction
Page" (http://www.solipsism.com/fanfic/).

     _The Raven and the Oriole_

         I.
One day she learned she was a special woman
With inborn powers that transformed her life,
She found that she could change into another --
A welcome gift in that embattled time.
And so the woman who was known as Raven
Became a spy and rushed to join the struggle.

The end of war brought no end to her struggle
For she became a mercenary woman;
Thus working for the highest bidder Raven
Deceived them all and made a successful life
When trouble came she always caught the time
To deftly flit from one employer to another.

But she grew weary, yearned to find another
And she no longer saw a purpose to her struggle
Until she met a most beguiling woman
With blinded eyes that could see forward into time
To future threats to their existence; her own life
Irene Adler gladly pledged to Raven.

Her new conjugal state agreed with Raven,
As they grew ever more devoted to one another;
Their common son they had to banish from their life
(This painful choice forced on them by their struggle),
But then they raised a stray-found girl to be a woman:
The three lived through a very happy time.

Their happiness proved not immune to time
Rogue's problems made her leave her mother Raven
Who also was aggrieved that the young woman
Threw down her cause pursuing the dream of another.
And worse, Mystique, now doubtful in her struggle,
Was not allowed to save Irene's life.

Her leman's death cast deepest darkness on her life,
And Raven mourned her long until the time
Val Cooper made her a soldier in her struggle
Although this service first sat ill with Raven,
She came to see how she was cared for by another --
that Val loved her and she could love this woman.

Unceasing struggle left deep scars on Raven
Until in time she dared to love another,
Embracing life with Val as her new woman.

         II.
When mutants were the focus of growing fears
And doubts were cast on Homo sapiens' future
Val Cooper won her boss Bob Kelly's trust,
Advised him on this subject very well.
To halt the threat the Senator and Val
In laws and weapons placed their hope.

A registration act was Kelly's hope
With force enough behind it to conquer fears,
To build this force became the task for Val
Who gathered arms and agents for the future;
Here Raven Darkhölme helped her very well
And thereby won the younger woman's trust.

Val then discovered she'd misplaced her trust,
That Raven worked in secret to foil her hope,
But learning more about them she saw well
That mutants just like she had fears
Of not surviving through wars into the future --
This realization opened the eyes of Val.

When she reviewed her old assumptions Val
Became more willing to bestow her trust
On mutants for the sake of a common future --
X-Factor became the symbol of this new hope.
Val worked with the others to conquer mutual fears
And press-ganged Raven to join her struggle as well.

In private things did not begin so well:
Mystique toyed with her heart incensing Val,
But coming to know her she allayed her fears
And she proved worthy of Val's reviving trust.
At last suspicion was overcome by hope
And love made them a couple for the future.

Alone no longer they journeyed into the future:
For Raven gave her love as a man as well,
>From love came daughters, first Irene, then Hope.
The parents, Mama Ray and Mommy Val,
Grew stronger in their loving trust
And banished their old ghosts and fears.

Rejecting fears Val gave Mystique her trust
Instilling hope in her to love as well,
So parents Val and Raven face the future.

Notes: The form of this poem is called a sestina (or more correctly, what
you see here are two sestinas, one focusing more on Raven, the other more on
Valerie). I got the inspiration (and the freer metre) from a poem I found in
a collection of science-fiction stories, _Saul's Death_ by Joe Haldeman.
(collected in his _Dealing in Futures_, 1986). According to my old
encyclopedia, the sestina proper was first used by the 12th-century
Provental poet Arnaut Daniel, later becoming most popular in Italy and
Spain. The body of a sestina consists of six stanzas of six lines each,
where the six lines of one stanza don't have to rhyme as such, but where all
six stanzas have the same six end-words for their six lines. The order has
to go through a prescribed change, so if one stanza has the sequence
1-2-3-4-5-6, the following one has to have 6-1-5-2-4-3. The tricky part
comes at the end in a tercet, where the six words have to be incorpurated
into three lines, in medial and final positions. Joe Haldeman also used
another variant accompanying his novel Forever Free (1999), where instead of
a tercet you find a single line -- a six-word sentence consisting only of
the end-words.

Valerie Cooper, Destiny (Irene Adler), Senator Robert Kelly, Mystique (Raven
Darkhölme), Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), Rogue, X-Factor are (c) and TM
Marvel Comics.
Irene and Hope Cooper are (c) Tilman Stieve.