THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING

Last night
in troubled dreams, I saw
the tower of Vortigern fall
through time
into now,
while all around
a greyish darkness enclosed me,
until I stood in the centre
of  decaying wasteland.
Mortally afraid, I sought
the silence inside,
where I found him.
A slight, not very tall man
mounted on a creamy-white stallion.

'Arthur,
why have you broken
your promise?' I blurted out.
'Bankruptcy, violence, greed
and wars no one wanted
are bringing down
your once great nation;
while invaders creep in
through bureaucratic cracks
to insidiously destroy us
from within.
Albion needs you now.
Yet still you don't come.
Why, Arthur?
Why have you abandoned
your subjects in our
darkest hour?'

He smiled indulgently,
as if a petulant child
stood before him.
Then,
speaking the language of chivalry
(virtually defunct today)
through cloud-form,
Raven song and patterns
woven into the land,
he taught me another way
of seeing.
From the heart.

And I learned
what love is.
It isn't that shallow
ego-driven thing
that all too often
masquerades in its name,
but is the pure
unconditional power
that created the Universe
and resonates in the Soul
of every sentient being.

And I understood
that nothing evil can possibly exist
in the presence of  true love,
and that it is solely
our unloving hearts
that have blocked its free-flow
and allowed this mayhem
to run riot through our land.
We have become the source
of our own destruction.

And I awoke then, knowing
that Arthur hasn't abandoned us.
It is we who have banished him
to the land of legends
and imprisoned him there.


But there is hope yet.
If we can only learn to open
these locked and desensitised
twenty-first century minds,
then maybe he will someday return
from the Blessed Isles,
our Once and Future King,
then Camelot will rise like the phoenix
from the ashes of anarchy
and the promised Golden Age
will dawn again.......