Once and Future



Camelot has fallen



The last knight rides

Away

Into the sunrise

Of the first day of the year



So Tennyson decided

Maybe based on information

Or more by

Insight

That had moved the poet

Through

Construction

And destruction

The rising

And the falling



Raised by music

Like cathedrals

Or said the poet’s peers

By the command of

Merlin

While depicting in

What must have seemed

Indomitable stone

All ascent and descent

In

Human ages

By

The wizard’s art

At its command



Now fallen also

The unearthly being

Sealed away

For now



And we are left

To ride away with Bedivere

Into our uncertain year

As

A matter of courses



When this hearing is done

And in our case

Unready for the courts



Ideals

By betrayals

Story-slain

As if by Mordred

Also

Guinevere

And Lancelot



All exposed

As our

Baser impulses toward

Ruination



Wrecking the foundation

Into rubble

That can

Support nothing like

The comely towers

Anymore



What kind of year

Is this



Where is the refuge

For the refugees



Shall Camelot be rebuilt

If only by words

In songs

Until we have the might

For right

To try again

With mortar in

Our stanzas



For now

On this first day

The sounds of riding

Harsh

Like our discourse

Now concluded



‘Til we open up

The pages of our lives

Again



While in a distant place

Already to be set

In camouflage by nature

The final

Burning

Broken stones of the last battle

Settle into

What had been

A part of Earth

More glorious

Somehow

By us



C L Couch





. . .

Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,

Down that long water opening on the deep

Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go

From less to less and vanish into light.

And the new sun rose bringing the new year.


from “The Passing of Arthur,” concluding Idylls of the King by Arthur, Lord Tennyson




Photo by Jigar Panchal on Unsplash