Merlin and Nimue

Whispers Upon the Surface of a Mist Covered Lake Poesy ... in Three Parts

Part I: Farewell to Merlin
Where are you off to ancient wise one,
Demon-son and prophet of Avalon?
You who taught the King the Mysteries
And readied him to rule,
Where are you going?
The woods?
The woods, you say?
You fool.
Yes! A fool.
Learned, art thou in the ways of deep magic,
Yet a deeper magic still
Beguiles you against your will.
You have begun to utter words that well
From earth’s primal spring.
Rivers awash with blood
Coursing pathways uncapped,
And straightway to the mouth,
Pouring forth, not spells
But poesy.
Yet are these not the same?
Strange spiraling spell-poesy,
Heard from whispering lips that
Echo across a mist covered lake,
Traveling upon a gentle and cool breeze
That ran its fingers across your neck
And made hair stand on end.
Now you say the affairs of men
No longer concern you.
That politics is a stage show
That dulls a man’s yearning
With the pretension of grand purpose.
A farce that your soul can no longer bare.
And so, we bid you farewell, old sage.
We shall not see you again
In Arthur’s courts, I fear.
You know this to be true
And yet, you go.
You go to the woods, all the same,
Welcoming your fate.
Farewell!

Part II: A Witness's Account
Step forth, boy.
A lowly farmers son,
Taught only in the ways of cattle and crops.
Yet such a life,
In commune with the land,
Teaches its own wisdom.
Tell us what you have seen
On your journey into the woods
Giving chase to stray beast.
An old man, you say?
Grey bearded, you spied.
Wandering one,
Going this way and that,
Muttering as he went.
Merlin it was, or so you thought,
Yet he denied it.
In search, he told you,
Of soul fragments.
Dappled leaves aglow from the kiss
Of the dying sun’s light.
The Kingfishers keen sight.
The first crack in Sprouting Acorns armour.
The melancholy of an autumn days twilight,
And a glimpse of the red-gold spark
Of Fox's torus-tail meadow dance.
A particular note in the Woodlark's song
As he sits upon his perch.
The scent of rain upon earth.
Tears shed at birth,
At death,
At rebirth.
He must gather, says he,
Pieces of her soul.
Throw them together
In the Cauldron of his heart,
For his final spell.
His final poem.
The symbol of his longing.
Who? You asked.
For whose soul do you speak
With such fixed intent?
But he merely gestures to the lake,
The shimmering blue of its crystal waters
Reflecting in his moistened eyes.

Part III: The Lady Appears
O Fair Maiden of the Waters,
You grace these courts,
With an ethereal beauty, rare and mysterious.
We have heard rumours of our dear friend,
The wizard and prophet,
And we fear his demise.
Yet the rumours say more,
They say things terrible and accusing.
But you appear before us unsummoned
As if innocence were as clear
As the waters from which you hail.
Tell us then, fey-souled sorceress,
Of the fate of Merlin.
He called me forth from the Lake
With a spell he wove from pieces of myself,
Gathered together in soul-alchemy,
The Lake’s arcane secrets whirl-pooling
Through his veins.
But just as I was not summoned here
Neither did he summon me to him
But I came of my own accord,
Responding to that which is neither his own
Nor mine own,
But a power greater than either of us.
He told me of his heart’s desire,
Of a yearning to be consumed by the Lake’s mysteries.
His blood memory had called him into the deep.
And so I obliged.
He shared with me his magic,
And I washed over it with my own.
And so, your friend, who you call Merlin,
Has withdrawn now from your world,
To be with me in the other.
Lies! The court cries.
For we have had witnesses come
And tell us of one
Ensnared in the grasping hands
Of an ancient Hawthorn tree.
It is Merlin they say, appearing dead,
Eyes lifeless,
But he rambles, speaking nothing of sense
Out of his closed mouth.
What witchcraft have you cast upon him?
Speak.
I have told you the truth already.
What you see,
Enclosed in Hawthorn Tree,
Is as the falconers cage for his bird,
That it might shed it’s feathers
And be transformed.
And so, your friend, who he was,
Is now but feathers scattered on the wind.
Dissolved into my waters, is he.
Grieve not, for he is more now than he ever was.
And if such a death as this,
To be unmade by love's yearning,
And remade in Sacred Union,
Is that of which I am being accused,
Then, indeed, I am guilty.