Tristan and Iseult by Stephen Lefebure

Courtly poets, singers on commission,

Sang of love – minnesangers swore it

As an oath – but did they really feel

More than we do? Make no such admission.

Passion and romance – surely we bore it

Hard when lovers hurt us – feelings real

As a tone that cracks when some musician

Has too much emotion to upstore it.

Notes may break before they can congeal.

Have you never sung and lost position

In the beat, behind it or before it?

That can even be a song’s appeal.

If Time were a book, and it had pages,

Could we touch those years when no one read

Words at all, when no one learned to read?

Years that we call dark, the Dark Ages.

Cornwall was aye conquered then instead

By Éirinn, a reverse we may concede.

The men of Éire land, soldiers and mages,

Had one Giant then that men would dread

Facing. Morholt did far well exceed

Others. Combats then were mostly rages

Without chivalry, were meant to bleed

And dismember till one man was dead.

I mean those years when people may have thought

Life had little worth, or was a thing of

Meager value, because people died

Young. The men whom Guinevere had fought

Stared it seemed on Earth, but saw whereof

Nothing – they were heads that she had tied

To her war horse Luan, draft horse bought

With a cote, a place for breeding dove

Hard by Corryvreckan where the tide

Races and unwary ships are caught.

Guinevere was married not for love

But to ally Picts to Arthur’s side.

Morholt came to Cornwall oft to take

Tribute from King Mark back to his nation.

Mark was from the Corneu tribe who came

From Wales to name a country for their sake.

No longer Dumnonia, creation

Of their own, they gave it a new name

From the island wall making a break

From the ocean surge, so their location

Became Cornwall underneath their claim.

Morholt took their tribute for the sake

Of his Éire land as an oblation.

Arthur further north heard of their plight,

Had a group of warriors who were

Large like him, not tall, and used

No swords (considered sissy for a knight

In those days) but axe or hammer.

Camelot itself (its name confused

Now) was Caer Mallot, whichever site

The Hammer, mallot, and its owner were

Castled in. Such men would be amused

By a sword, near useless in a fight.

Gawain, Tristan, Angus (we prefer

Lancelot for his name) – none refused

Arthur, but the man he sent was Tristan.

That knight rode to Cornwall from Carlisle

To help the Welsh and Cornish in their need.

Tristan urged a contest, better than

Paying tribute – much more like his style.

Mark was joyful at this and agreed.

That would be a death fight man to man.

Tristan asked to use a lonely isle

Where the loser would remain and bleed.

The duel was presented as their plan

To Morholt, though they would have to compile

Tribute – in case Tristan died indeed.

The island of Saint Sampson, in the Cornwall

Archipelago was chosen, and each knight

Sailed alone a one-mast fishing boat,

Morholt from Éire land, his father’s hall,

Arméd by his sister that he might

Use his jeweled mace in that remote

Battlefield where none would see the fall

Of the knight who would not see the light

Of dawn. Iseult was forced then to emote

Even though she wist that he slew all

Opponents – she shed tears for him in spite

Of reason, and found time enou to dote.

“Arm your soul, and arm as well your skin,”

She said, and sharpened up his mace with stone.

Its iron shaft concluded with a sphere

Crowned with spikes that ended at a thin

Point, embossed with jewels of her own.

She had bought them, rubies, hard by here

In the castle court, where she had been

Princess and physician, and had known

Every kind of wound a knight could fear.

Morholt was so large that he would win

Every time, but had cuts to his bone

She had sewn up often with her gear.

Morholt landed first, as Tristan knew

Beaching his own craft upon that strand.

A ghostly boat would carry forth the dead.

He staved his own oak hull, for one not two

Would leave. There on Saint Sampson’s island

Two hills join along a narrow thread.

This was the south hill. Buckled, then he drew

His hammer, and ascended in sand.

Seeing Morholt on the summit, he tread

Diagonally. Meant to come to

His foe stealthily on top – he planned

No fight from below – head on instead.

Before a battle, muscles are tighter,

Heartbeat faster, mind is clearer.

Air that we inhale seems colder.

Sun in the sky – does that seem brighter?

Life may end, so time is dearer.

One knight dies, will not get older.

Heft your hammer – it is lighter

Than it has been in your gear or

Raised aloft. Fear makes you bolder.

Shorter than Morholt. Never slighter.

In battle everything is nearer,

Even to a far-beholder.

Mace and hammer combine like thunder.

Leather armor over fine chain mail.

Legs well planted, straining their thighs

To push the other backward or under.

Neither allows his muscles to fail.

Too close to strike, so neither one tries.

Holds his weapon. Either could sunder

The other’s shield, but cannot avail

Chest to chest. The great Morholt has size

But Tristan draws his strength from wonder.

Like an arm-wrestle but on the scale

Of every muscle their bodies comprise.

Time does not pass while they are straining.

Birds are frozen as in tapestry.

Wind is captured, restrained in a cave.

Morholt tires – is Tristan gaining

Leverage on him? – I see his knee

Moving upwards, forcing the brave

Morholt backwards, his arms contraining

Morholt’s down until I can see

Them separate and clash – Morholt gave

A blow with his mace – but training

His hammer down on his enemy

Tristan split that skull in its nave.

Yet Tristan took his last blow dearly.

The mace embedded itself in his head

And when he withdrew that weapon it broke.

With the spike inside, it bled severely.

Tristan pushed from shore and made his bed

In The Morholt’s craft beneath a cloak.

Where he sailed from there was clearly

Not his choice, as the man was near dead,

But if his situation could evoke

Grace from any god, or his was merely

Luck, he sailed direct to the healing-bed

Of Iseult, and to her his head wound spoke.

At first she thought him just a soldier who

Death had nearly claimed, but when she went

With her tools inside his laceration,

She removed that spike which she well knew

Came from Morholt’s mace, now badly bent

But bearing still a ruby – donation

To that weapon of her own, which drew

Light into its fearsome crown, and meant

Blood, but for others meant damnation.

This anonymous enemy slew

Her famous brother Morholt, and fate sent

Hapless he to her, to her location,

Not so she could heal him, but to do

Murder? On a man completely spent.

Here he was, a patient in her tower

Of the castle, where she had her clinic.

Princess of the realm, they did not call her

Doctor (“learned man”) but in the hour

Of extreme distress, when they were sick

Unto death, each warrior below her

On her beds knew that she held a power

No one else possessed. Technique or trick,

Whatever herbs or lore could show her,

Those Death wanted so much to devour

Iseult could sew, would make their bodies quick.

With their lives thereafter they owe her.

She released him healed and none the worse.

Tristan then set sail upon the tide

Back to Cornwall, where he quickly told

About the princess who was such a nurse.

Said that she was beautiful, beside

Her skill in healing. That men could behold

Her from their bed made illnesses reverse.

Not Tristan alone, as well the pride

Of Éire land made all the court behold

Iseult. When many courtiers converse

Nobility may harken and decide.

King Mark heard those praises and was sold.

A wooing party was created then

By all the courtiers, with Tristan

As its main spokesperson unto Gurmun,

Sire of Éire land and lord of men.

Now a tribute to him was the plan

As before, before Tristan had won.

Wrote a panegyric to him when

Tristan met the King, more weighty than

The offerings which seemed to weigh a ton?

The gifts of gold and silver sent again

As in years before might help the man

Bear his loss, that of his only son.

Further, Tristan might beguile his fair

Court with tales of Arthur as he had

That of Mark – such stories were a lore

Appreciated for their magic, rare

Adventures, their impossible and mad

Landscapes, and implausibility, more

Fascinating when Tristan would swear

That they all were true, that he could add

Nothing to their deeds of love and war,

Their strange artifacts which were all there

In strange lands where famous armor-clad

Knights had used them, knew what they were for.

We would expect fine letters to be sent

To Iseult and Gurmun. None could write

Other than some monks or priests who were

Not even from Rome, but did invent

Out of pagan elements a quite

Different Christianity – a blur

Of goddess worship, aspects meant

For fertility – sex holds its right

Place to some extent, to not deter

Pleasure – this they later did repent!

The troop would thus surprise, sending its knight

For King Mark who would propose to her.

Reassured by now that every legend

In these tales is true in every part,

Assured before our tale has quite begun –

We must now believe and not amend

That as they prepared then to depart

They heard Éire land suffered a dragon.

That to any knight who would contend

With it and succeed their King would part

With his daughter, to the knight who won

That battle – wed Iseult and be his friend.

Tristan had good reason then to start

Combat – not a task he would have done.

They sailed north to Éire land where long

Ago only the people called “of Dan”

Dwelled in hills and trees and carved in stone.

Following reports of death along

The counties, leaving courtiers to plan

Speeches, Tristan rode almost alone.

Was there a time when dragons could belong

On Earth? The encroachment then of man

Everywhere had left them with no zone

Where they would not turn into a song

When carved by a hero from some clan.

Going where that dragon last was known,

Tristan smelled a reek and found the taste

Of destruction on a blackened field.

There against a hill the dragon slept.

What is courage but our fear displaced

When we cannot run away or yield?

The boy inside him ran as Tristan stepped

His stallion to the lizard through that waste.

“Leave this land, I charge you,” he appealed

To the monster, knowing dragons kept

Knowledge of all languages, and traced

Back before the moon had been revealed.

Disrespect would be worse than inept.

The serpent shifted each translucent scale

As he slowly woke to prophecy.

“You will be my death, but you will fall

Soon enough yourself, You will not fail

In battle, but you nonetheless will die

Of a wound inflicted on us all.

You will be as famous as the Grail

Parsifal pursues, not knowing why

The Kingship of the Grail must yet befall

Galahad his son when he is pale.

Angus known as Lancelot, the high

King, will bleed with Arthur at the Wall.”

“Arthur will be borne to Avalon,”

The dragon said, “a castle hard to find.”

From its country it is wryly said

One can see four nations, on

One side Éire land, but then behind,

Britain, and the land that Arthur wed

When he took his bride. Foregone,

You can see the land you are confined

In, the apple-country free from dread.

At its western edge one day at dawn

Spot the island God almost designed

As a castle, where assaults have bled.”

“Thank you for the future that we should

See, those of us who live long enough,”

said Tristan, bowing deeply to that worm.

Backing up a little, then he stood

Straight, and tried to look, well, if not tough,

Not effeminate, and so confirm

His courage, or to find it, so he could

Face this dragon, who could, with a puff,

Burn him to an ash. Hiding a squirm,

He said “I will oppose you, if you would

Honor my attack with your rebuff.”

All the while his voice and legs seemed firm.

“Let us meet in combat then,” our hero

Added. “Your words tried to tell me more

Than my heart will ever understand.”

“Later, you will understand and know

Everything of passion. Will adore

More than love could wish for or demand.

Life itself will marvel that you go

Beyond all limits ever set before

Mortals, beyond any measure planned

For emotion. Even long ago

And out unto the future’s farthest shore –

Your love is the one that will expand.

“Dying by your hammer is for me

As if love allows me to contribute

To a fate that makes this Earth more rare.

Adding to your legend lets me be

Part of your persuasion. Let the moot

Point be that Iseult will journey where

You and Mark reside, by the decree

Of her father. You present the suit

Of your king, but later you will care

More than you expect, and both will be

Stripped by magic no one can refute

To your naked Spirits always bare.”

“My name you know, and wist as well indeed

My fate, but it seems no more than polite

To ask after your own, how you are known?”

“I am a serpent scion of the breed

Draoidheacht Oilliphéist, enchanted quite.

‘Caoránach’ my mother called her own

Largest hatchling. I managed to exceed

Arach my father, and the soaring height

Of my mother Lien. I have grown

Beyond the size of caves, so now I need

Bowers of the forest in the night.

Thank you for this courtesy well shown.”

They faced off, that brave soldier and the scaled

Serpent with his wings and exhalations.

Tristan with his hammer and his shield.

Caoránach inhaled and then exhaled

Vaguely toward where Tristan had his station.

With nothing left to burn, the blackened field

Withstood the blast, Tristan’s large detailed

Shield caught fire, wood in full cremation.

Letting go the shield he had to wield

His hammer. Hurling it, he fairly nailed

The dragon’s skull, cracked to its foundation.

After long delay, the dragon keeled.

One farmer had a scythe, which he made use

Of, with no sword there, to remove the head

Of the serpent for the distant King.

Tristan found a cart, and had to choose

A mare out of a stable, poorly fed,

To haul the strange unsightly magic thing.

A dragon-slayer needed no excuse

To ride through Éire land pulling a dread

Enchanted monster – it was newly spring

And it took no minstrel to enthuse

The people. Now the awful worm was dead

And the population started singing.

He joined his courtiers and found Gurmun

Aware of his success. He now assigned

His diplomatic romantic request.

“I sent my knights to fight but sadly none

Returned from combat, so I declined

After some time to send more men, lest

No mortal could subdue that dragon.

I promised my daughter to all mankind

If any knight could fulfill that quest.

Now here you are with the task well done

But you ask that our kingdoms be aligned

In marriage – perhaps that is for the best.”

To to amuse that court and entertain

Gurmon, Tristan offered to unfold

Arthurian adventures he had heard.

“There was no Christmas then in the domain

Of Britain. Winter solstice had of old

Reached into the sleeping Earth and stirred

Depths so it would wake from sleep again.

The guests unto this solstice did behold

A giant in a byrnie green he gird

With a leather belt there to retain

An axe so red with blood that all were cold

To look on it, and could not speak a word.

“He issued forth a challenge, speaking fair,

Although his voice was low as if the boom

Of a thunderstorm spoke in immense

Syllables which shuddered in the air.

‘Brave and noble knights who fill this room,’

He said, ‘I may not tell you plainly whence

I come, nor what I am, but I will dare

Bare my neck to any here, from whom

I will take one stroke with no defense.’

There was a silence deeper than a prayer

Spoken in the heart, until the gloom

Seemed almost like fog, seemed to condense.

“‘There is a promise that I will extract

From the knight who may remove my head

If his arm and blade are of the best.’”

Gurmund’s court was shocked, and lacked

Words, but “ooh” and “my” were heard instead.

This tale had not been told to any guest

Outside Arthur’s realm, was told as fact,

And was like the tugging of a thread

From a tapestry that pulls the rest.

“‘If I survive, I ask him to contract

A year from now to meet, a place I tread.

And I will stroke him back to be his test.’

“Angus known as Lancelot was still.

Parsifal, Sir Bors, and Bedvedere,

Lamorak, Sir Gareth, and Sir Kay.

None of these arose to say ‘I will

Perform this stroke.’ In fear,

People froze and Arthur did not say

Which knight errant ought to make the kill.

Gawain pushed his plate back, had to clear

His chair back from the table to make way

For himself to stand. ‘It is a chill

Task to set when everyone is here

To celebrate a sacred holiday.’

“The giant said, again as if he spoke

From a storm, or as the voice of Spring

Buried in the Earth, ‘I thank your Word,

Knight. With that word Sacred you evoke

Those whom men call Dan, those who could swing

On breezes, lost religions once preferred

Before a new god coming here awoke.

I am he who used to be their king

But now have no subjects, an absurd

Survivor whom the future will revoke.

Thank you for your bravery as well. Bring

Axe, I will not die by stroke incurred.’

“Gawain felt his ax and weighed its heft.

Strode to where the giant meekly knelt

On the ground – inside that giant tent.

‘If I slay you, we shall be bereft,’

He said, expressing what those present felt.

All these knights have stayed because they meant

No harm – each warrior would have you left

Intact rather than be the one who dealt

A mortal cut that in one moment rent

Your head clean from your bloody body, cleft.

Nor would I, but this stroke must now be dealt,

At your request and by your own consent.’”

Tristan added, “I myself was there,

I, Tristan, but I did not rise to slay

That giant, and have no words to express

Why I was not brave in that affair.

Gawain brought his ax down all the way

Through that neck, and we saw an abscess

Larger than a tree trunk – had to stare

At the hole. Perhaps some looked away,

Did not see that giant find, caress,

Grasp his head and place it back on where

It was before the ax produced a spray

Of blood, as from a fountain, to address

“Those looking with his speech most courteous.

‘You who look on grimly at this sight,

Do not be afraid, for this is my

Rebirth, is what should happen, right for us,

We advocates of Earth and of the night.

You will be our death, and we will die,

And our death will not be glorious

Like Angus, nor like Arthur, as a knight

In battle – and we never will know why

You do not believe in, or discuss

The powers we have wielded with such might.

We will become the monsters you defy,

“‘Who were once the gods you asked for light.

Serpents, dragons, vast and ancient trees,

Springs and mountain peaks, even the ocean –

You beseeched us, begged of us the right

To inhabit here, asked all of these

Beings, with polite and true devotion,

To survive the perils of each night.

Sacrifice means make it Sacred, please

Beings who think only in slow motion,

Rivers, even mountains at their height.

We are sad to see you now appease

Gods who seem without any emotion.

“‘You who worshiped reproduction, lust,

Spring itself, the harvest, music, song,

Have your spirits withered that you now

Worship death? A god who dies, but just

Resurrects and leaves? Do you belong

Here, on this green Earth your farmers plow?

You worshiped female beauty. How unjust

And false it seems to say that you were wrong

Giving femininity your vow.

Do you love no woman, give your trust

To a vanished spirit, all along

Losing maypole, midnight, blossomed bough?

“‘Now I ask this knight, and know his name,

Gawain, without asking it of you,

Bravest in this strangest situation,

To rendezvous where Merlin of great fame

Guards a spring out east, where magic grew

As mist – effect without causation.

Meet me in one year and take the same

Stroke from me as I received, and do

This courtesy with no more explanation,

You whose bravery deserves acclaim.’

Gawain knew the place and would go to,

Go to at that year’s expiration.

“A year can pass so quickly when you want

Its days to pass like weeks. The giant’s Word

Troubled Gawain. None were really true

Christians there, but in the green knight’s taunt

There was a hard thing in it they had heard

Not just with their ears, and so it grew.

Do the folk of Dan exist, and haunt

The groves of Éire land where magic stirred

Without any spell that humans knew?

Do we here in Gurmun’s court, a font

Of legends, feel this loss that has occurred?

Gawain took the journey he must do.

“Took the stroke with valor. Did not lose

His head. His bravery in kneeling there

To display his neck was grit enough

For that knight. He took a minor bruise

And slice along the neckline where

The blade had scratched a narrow scruff

And left a mark. And to confuse

Gawain even more, after a scare

No one could ignore – no one is tough

When so close to death, in such abuse –

Then that knight said he would like to swear

Friendship with all Arthur’s knights, rebuff

War against them. Combat only whose

Cause conflicted theirs, because they share

Honor. All agree that death is rough.”

Tristan spoke unto an audience

Well used to a dragon in their land,

But unused to such magic as he said

Occurred – outside all their experience.

Therefore he was hard to understand.

Saying that a giant with no head

Rose up notwithstanding made no sense.

Yet there was authority, command,

In his voice, so they whispered instead

That this was not false but too intense

For them to absorb and to withstand,

So it stayed a wound in them that bled.

One there was however who could hear

Everything as if it were her own

Experience now happening to her.

She saw the Giant enter and appear

Frightening, and yet the way a known

Terror can be easy to deter.

The world by definition is right here

Next to us, so when its form is shown

As a giant man we may infer

It is not attempting to draw fear

But showing that it needs us, is alone,

Always needed us and who we were.

If world speaks in words and asks us why

We no longer love it we should blame

Ourselves for having pulled so far away.

As we age, do we no longer cry?

When we made our own world we became

Enemies to nature. We betray

Ourselves in almost everything we try.

This is what Iseult heard in the same

Story that the court heard on that day.

Saw that Tristan wanted to ally

Himself with what we cannot ever tame,

Meant more than his eloquence could say.

He saw her watching him but neither knew

That this cause would bring them both together.

Rules and laws – the spirit world is dying

Because we never know just what to do

For the trees and animals. Whenever

We attempt to help we are applying

Our beliefs and dreams that are untrue.

This is why the world showed we can sever

Its own neck, but must not go on lying.

Iseult and Tristan understood a new

Way to live and die that lasts forever.

Mere existence is more terrifying.

A wedding dress was fashioned up and sewn

For Iseult, and for her retinue

Fine new dresses tailored up and made.

Erin people, also Cornwall’s own

Were packing up and making do

With items; final purchases were paid.

They embarked off an enormous stone

Breakwater assisted by a queue

Of courtesans dispatched to give them aid.

On the voyage Tristan was alone

With Iseult, and in that time they knew

Each needed the other, were unmade.

No love potion happened. Those two when

He was wounded, in that circumstance

Met before – but as if he were not

Himself – perhaps already, even then,

Kindled admiration at first glance.

He the warrior whose wounds had brought

Him to her in need, and she a woman

Of her time, but learnèd, to enhance

Her beauty, which itself could well have caught

Bachelors, but woven could begin

On a deepest level, like a trance,

Love beyond what anyone has sought.

Standing now together, not in pain,

Able to express in words their great

Admiration for each other’s deeds,

She no longer needing to refrain,

As his healer, having to await –

He who was the dreamer who concedes

That his dream will happen once again,

That the time is neither soon nor late –

Now this moment beckons to them, leads

On to where insanity is sane –

Something in us tries to find a mate

Made for us, our other self, who needs

Us the way a thirst desires rain.

Standing just a little way apart

From each other, with the wine they toast –

Merely an excuse to be together –

Currents on a map are just a chart

Of our longing, being close, almost

Joined, but separated by rough weather.

Undercurrents, riptides, where the smart

Sailor watches shoals along the coast

As a sign of reefs no one has ever

Mapped, a danger to his ancient art –

Is not every one of us the most

Lonely human being altogether?

Who among us can control their heart

When it says we will be like a ghost

If we do not fall in love forever?

No potion mixed by any sorcerer

Made this man betray, made him resent

His king. Nor no incantation whence

Magic came made any drink for her,

To make Iseult adore and give assent

To forbidden love that made no sense.

Love needs no excuse and will prefer

What should not exist to the consent

Of authorities and their pretense.

Iseult had something like a whisperer

Inside who told her that her life was meant

To love, so love itself could grow intense.

Landing in Cornwall, met by the King

And Mélot, he a knight most envious

Of Tristan, they were brought into the hall.

Minstrels were right happy then to sing

Of Tristan’s victory, stewards to bring

Victuals, fine maidens made a fuss

About the dragon, how did he appall?

Through this Iseult and Tristan try to cling

To each other, knowing it a plus

That he is her escort through it all.

They arrange to meet beside the spring

Which feeds the castle, where they may discuss,

Late at night, how to escape withal.

Later in the forest park behind

The castle precinct, with Iseult, Tristan

Let his heart expand into the vast

Stars which are completely unconfined.

“Iseult, there is no other lover than

You – you are as if the silence asked

For a perfect woman – well designed

To be the greatest hand at medicine,

As well as beautiful.” “Even the past,

Tristan, with all its warriors aligned,

Has no match for you, the perfect man,

Warrior and lover, here at last.”

“Iseult, you are so beautiful and so

Admirable that the heart cannot

Merely wish to hold you. I need your you,

Who you are inside. My heart is caught

In your pull and everything is for you."

“Tristan, I will never let you go.

Men are violent, ignorant, have sought

Women for their bodies. There is more you,

More by far to love. No one can owe

More than all they are, and I have brought

That because I desperately adore you.”

Hard perhaps for us to understand

What they did, how hard it was to feel

That our life, this consciousness, what here

We are now, attempting to expand,

Is meaningful, is even fully real,

Because their age was dictated by fear.

Everything one did was by command

Of nobility or church – to kneel

To them in submission and adhere

To the framework given in that land,

That country where your heartbreak did not heal.

They chose more than love, chose to revere.

“There is a kingdom that we walk toward,”

said Tristan, and the darkness made the sound

Die as if it had not yet been said.

“A kingdom where someday I will be lord.”

“I know this Kingdom, Tristan, all around.

All men know the Kingdom of the Dead.

You will be my husband there, adored

Beyond all men that women ever found

Since the first man’s drop of blood was shed.

Beyond all borders, never yet explored,

You will rule there because you have bound

Silence to the words on which it fed.

“This will be your gift to me and my

Lifeless body will be my excuse

For a dowery, for we have to leave

All my father’s treasure when we die.

What do we bequeath? A hollow truce,

Two unmarked graves where nobody will grieve,

Interminable rain down from the sky,

A warning. If life wishes to seduce

Others such as we to now believe,

Your kingdom has an entrance there hard by,

So they can join us quickly and produce

Subjects you and I may there receive.

“Yet you have fed more Being to the curse

Of emptiness than it can digest.

We have started something so that all

The world will stop its course and reverse.

Now the heart will never be at rest

When it hears the other person call

To it clearly. It has to immerse

Its soul into the other person’s breast.

This change will be slow, but will befall

Every human being – in a verse

Poetry will say what many guessed,

That true love flows like a waterfall,

“Is worth more than wealth or family,

Honor or long life, because all those

Give a joyless life that ends the same.

It is henceforth not enough to be

Bigger than one’s empty childhood clothes.

The three estates are now a worthless game

Spent in subjugation, on your knee

To someone you know you never chose

As your lord. Our love defeats this shame,

These years of prayer and worthless fealty

Where fear is primary and your life goes

Away in moments you can never claim.”

“You understand, Iseult, and you express

More than this brute soldier ever could

What our raw emotion here has wrought.

People never knew their own distress,

Farming, hunting, stacking firewood.

Their distress was that they never thought

Life was something precious to possess.

No one told them that they ever could.

In words and by example they were taught

Never to ask much, not to undress

The spirit and the body as it stood

Asking to be held and to be caught.

“All those people who have power,

Who restrain the Third Estate,

All those godheads new and old,

Let them fear now in this hour,

Things will alter for the Great.

Stand on hilltops of the wold,

Release the song that will devour

All our pain that has no weight.

Spirit cannot be controlled

When it chooses to be our

Self and tells us not to wait.”

On each moonless night, we take this lie

To be self-evident: that human laws

Own our feelings. That we have a test

To gauge our sentiments or even try.

Emotions are all infinite because

Being has no place for it to rest.

World is not its home, and we all die

Alone. Experience can never pause

Life. Our language never has expressed

What it was invented to deny.

Words and music, art, and their applause

Hide the subject they have not addressed.

God is larger than theology,

Lives inside our bodies, our desire,

Lust itself and love, is not outside.

Spirit can expand more than it would be

If we were our bodies and could tire

Of existence, of how hard we tried.

Now the challenge can be understood. Be

Unafraid to set yourself on fire.

Life itself must never be denied

In its needs, its loneliness, or would be

Wrong. We say in truth our life is prior

And more urgent than what men decide.

In the midnight watches that we keep,

If one of us cried, and no one heard,

Because in all that space there was no Spirit

And the night closed on it like the Deep –

Would that cry be better than deferred

Anguish, with no voice that can adhere it

To the endless silence that must weep,

Weep with tears alone, because, interred

In darkness, darkness cannot hear it?

Better to cry out then, though the leap

Into Being hurts more than the Word

Of God. Being hurts, but we revere it.

Still inside the dark perhaps it may

Happen, we may someday hear a cry

From another like us, are awoken.

Sound is heavier than things can weigh.

That will be as if a world would pry

Open giving up its Heart as token

That it has no Word that it can say.

Crying – no one needs a reason why,

Offering their Heart which life has broken

As the currency their soul must pay.

In all this loneliness before we die

Spirit often spends its life unspoken.

By that spring where they met long ago,

Mélot led a group of soldiers to him,

Tristan, he who brought Iseult to Mark.

“Traitor,” Mélot cried and drew to show

His blade, but Tristan who well knew him

Took unarmed that sword-thrust in the dark.

Kurwenal, a friend, helped them to go

From that place, where Mélot almost slew him.

Behind them with his group the monarch,

Anguished at that violence, tried to know

What had happened? Did the woman woo him?

Trying to recall each mild remark.

Tristan could not walk. They had to steal him,

Iseult and Kurwenal, from all the other

People in the park, into the forest.

They found a peasant hut there to conceal him,

Where they bound his wound, and felt another

In his back – that sword ran through his breast.

Stripped and washed him, had to turn and feel him

Everywhere. The people there, the mother

Helped by boiling water for their guest,

Famous, so they asked, “Can they heal him,

Tristan?” A sister and a brother

Idolized him, far above the rest.

If there is a power in the Earth where

Gawain’s knight arose – if we are near it –

Let that help them now, before pursuit

Overtakes them – if the wind can care

Let it hide them all before they hear it –

Hear the dogs and men, hear all the brute

Force that hunts down lovers everywhere –

If animals could wake and feel the spirit

Humans feel, could speak, and were not mute,

Then the world itself could be a prayer

Of astounding force – so that men fear it –

Protecting these whose need is so acute.

After many stitches it was late.

Kurwenal removed him to an island,

With his wound bound tightly, but inside,

Blood was spilling out. Yet in that state

They drew up upon a shattered strand.

Iseult would follow with her kit – had tried

Without medicines to halt his fate

In that shelter. We must understand

Shock and grief, the tears which had not dried

As she sewed his back to stop the great

Flow of blood. No art at her command

Could heal the groom so she could be his bride.

On that shore, world itself was broken.

Not that people felt, that people feel

Grief, not that all grief is without limit.

Lying in that skiff, inside its oaken

Staves, he could not rise to make appeal

To forces as we do, we who admit

Gods or spirits, we who kneel in token

Of submission, hoping gods are real.

In that world where words were never writ

Down, his story started to be spoken

Even as he died, because we deal

With our life through legends which explain it.

Princess of Éire land, one who could heal

Wounds which would be mortal in the hand

Of any doctor – she came late and found

Tristan on his back, and bent to kneel

With him on that isolated strand,

Dead, but bloodless, as if he had drowned.

Does the world itself know how to feel

That something is wrong, and understand

When its life and ours are deeply bound

Together – are these ancient legends real,

Spoken by the Earth, at its command?

Iseult released her Spirit to the sound

Of the surf which pounded into meal

All the hearts then beating in that land,

Leaving these mere things we see around.

Is ours a world where spells can still be cast,

Where the Earth can rise for us and speak

To us saying words that we can hear?

Are miracles and magic in the past,

Only in old stories, in antique

Tapestries, quaint objects that are queer?

Spirits come although they are not asked,

Stand in front of us, or in oblique

Corners so they do not quite appear.

We are not the first and not the last

To gain knowledge that we did not seek

From unexpected sources very near.