A Mind's Eye

The Wizard Comes Awake

Deep beneath the spilt-salt skies of night,
beneath the canopies of oak
and leafy loam of earth,
beneath the grasping elder roots
in a cavern roughly hewn,
a shroud of blue-white ice engulfs
a soul as ancient as the moon.

Here Merlin lies asleep within this frigid cave,
betrayed by love's enchantment
cast upon his wearied heart,
brought down from high atop his lofty perch
by Nimue,
whose eyes like ebon pearls within
their iridescent shell
still dance before the mage's gaze,
as deathly, dark, and dangerous,
as Albion's deepest well.

A thousand years below the lonely grove he slept,
a thousand years supine,
since Belvidere the sword restored
and magic was divine.
A thousand years with Nimue,
beside the frozen lake,
he dreamed the dreams of Avalon,
but now at last the wizard comes awake.

His eyes encrusted, open full at last.
His robes of silk and golden thread,
now frayed and cracked
with all the cruelties of time,
fall off his fragile form in flakes,
as naked to the world he climbs.
He stares about him at a world
where magic has long died,
where forests razed have been replaced
with structures, roads and monuments
of man's self-serving pride.

The world, mundane and merciless,
appalls the ancient sage,
who lifts his arms in horror
and lifts his voice in rage.
"There is no place for wizards here
where magic has been lost.
Where festivals of nature's joy
are now the Pentecost.
Where man no longer feels a debt
to the world in which he lives.
Where all he does is take and use
and thus no longer gives."

The wizard to his copse returns
and lies supine once more.
His eyelids droop and anger fades
and then a gentle snore.
Another thousand years, he thinks,
when magic will return.
Another thousand years of sleep
and man perhaps will learn.
Another thousand years of rest
beside the sacred lake.
Another thousand years of hope
'till the wizard comes awake.