I hope I’m not the only one captivated by the audio version of Malcolm Guite’s Galahad and the Grail. It’s poetic delight! I used to teach bits of the Arthurian legends years ago to my lit students, but for some reason, I gave them up for stories that felt more relatable.
Guite makes these stales absolutely beautiful. And it’s hard not to be intrigued by such countercultural virtue. With this listening, I’ve been struck by how Galahad (spoiler alert!), the one who achieved the Grail) prepared for his quest. As a young child, he was placed in a convent to be raised by nuns. No fencing classes, no weight training, no therapist, no protein diet. Just a quiet and meditative life. Not a lot of action.
It reminded me of a poem I wrote earlier this year that considers David’s life. His “quest prep” was shepherding. That’s pretty much it. Maybe a lion or two passed through his pastures at night, but I’m guessing his days were slow.
And when the day came that he was to face Goliath, he refused to dress up for it. No bullet proof vests. No Red Bulls. No overnighted weapons.
He chose what he already knew, what he had been rubbing smooth in the quiet of his own familiar rivers.
This poem was first published in Wandering Lights Literary Magazine Issue 1. Wandering Lights Issue 1 - Wandering Lights Lit Mag
Keeping to Himself the making of a Pendragron For he would have known what was in a stone; the little he knew lay bedded in brooks brushed smooth, buffed in the tow of girded streams that flowed through the grasses he combed, his dreams weathered beneath sworn stars, where he lie down to learn shepherd— to rest within his mean, to bare the staff of the decried, to trust in a sling; for what was another beast when the humble still silenced those who mocked, who dared him to pull a mythic sword from some rock, to heed the call of the unknown, to live as legend, to dress in some armored sham of self and walk as one who believes that stones are for skipping across water.