Wild Arthur: A Tintagel Conception

Gallos, Rubin Eynon, Tintagel 

A Tintagel Conception

Wild Arthur

awaiting to be reborn

here on this rough island.

Storm forged, sea girdled,

palace of choughs and seals,

this, the cracked cauldron of your making,

where you were conceived,

— so the poets sing —

a gleam in the eye of Uther,

using Merlin’s magic to

inveigle his way into Igraine’s

bower, guised as Gorlois.

Good enough for the guards.

But a wife knows.

Did she keep mum,

as her belly bloomed

with another’s child —

a Pendragon pregnancy?

Where you first saw the light

Of day, who can say?

Did Merlin spirit you away,

swaddled in spells,

to raise you a king

in some gramarye-tangled grove?

 

Wild Arthur,

Fortune’s cock-snooker,

bold-undertaker,

who raided Annwn,

who pulled the sword

from the rock;

Arthur of the Celts,

warrior chieftain

who gathered men

to him, a wolf-pack —

no shiny knights of courtly romance

these, but mud-cloaked

dwellers of the wild wood,

fen-hoppers, ridge-runners,

moving swift, striking deep,

inspiring love and loyalty

by deed and word – not

by wealth or birthright.

 

How we need you now –

to put steel to justice,

an edge to truth,

a backbone to the beleaguered.

Hope to the underdog,

healer of a broken kingdom.

Recarve the table round

so all may sit as equals,

so all may partake of the feast,

so all may be heard and seen,

so all may taste of the Grail.

Copyright (c) Kevan Manwaring 2020