The story begun on 9/11 has ended. Now it is time for another story.
Enid & Geraint
Once strong, from solid
Camelot he came
Glory with him, Geraint,
Whose sword tamed the wild.
Fabled the fortune he won,
Fame, and a wife.
The beasts he battled
With horn and lance;
Stood farms where fens lay.
When bandits returned
To old beast-holds
Geraint gave them the same.
And then long peace,
Purchased by the manful blade.
Light delights filled it,
Tournaments softened, tempered
By ladies; in peace lingers
the dream of safety.
They dreamed together. Darkness
Gathered on the old wood,
Wild things troubled the edges,
Then crept closer.
The whispers of weakness
Are echoed with evil.
At last even Enid
Whose eyes are as dusk
Looked on her Lord
And weighed him wanting.
Her gaze gored him:
He dressed in red-rust mail.
And put her on palfrey
To ride before or beside
And they went to the wilds,
Which were no longer
So far. Ill-used,
His sword hung beside.
By the long wood, where
Once he laid pastures,
The knight halted, horsed,
Gazing on the grim trees.
He opened his helm
Beholding a bandit realm.
Enid cried at the charge
Of a criminal clad in mail!
The Lord turned his horse,
Set his untended shield:
There lacked time, there
Lacked thought for more.
Villanous lance licked the
Ancient shield. It split,
Broke, that badge of the knight!
The spearhead searched
Old, rust-red mail.
Geraint awoke.
Master and black mount
Rediscovered their rich love,
And armor, though old
Though red with thick rust,
Broke the felon blade.
The spear to-brast, shattered.
And now Enid sees
In Geraint's cold eyes
What shivers her to the spine.
And now his hand
Draws the ill-used sword:
Ill-used, but well-forged.
And the shock from the spear-break
Rang from bandit-towers
Rattled the wood, and the world!
Men dwelt there in wonder.
Who had heard that tone?
They did not remember that sound.
His best spear broken
On old, rusted mail,
The felon sought his forest.
Enid's dusk eyes sense
The strength of old steel:
Geraint grips his reins.
And he winds his old horn,
And he spurs his proud horse,
And the wood to his wrath trembles.
And every bird
From the wild forest flies,
But the Ravens.
3 comments:
Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, has an article surveying how high school US history textbooks cover 9/11. The coverage is actually better than I expected, but still kinda disappointing.
French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy: American Honor
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/american-honor-afghanistan
My goodness. I had not expected such kind words from a French philosopher, especially at this hour.
Though this one line caught my eye:
"It is never good when, in a democracy, retired members of the military presume to put themselves back into service."
This, I think, has a hidden assumption that is not appropriate to our case. America depends -- much more than is commonly understood -- on conspiracies to help her government for its own good. This has to do with the ossification I often discuss; sometimes, the only way to make anything happen quickly enough given the calcified bureaucratic state is to go outside the system. I've spent a good part of my adult life doing that sort of thing.
I suspect he's thinking of things like military coups, or the like. But Task Force Pineapple isn't anything like that. It is just as he describes it.
Post a Comment