In the Third Sleep; or, The Hermit Sage Relates the Quest as Told Him at His Lodge Near the Spring in the Forest by Sir Kay the Seneschal Returning Gaunt and Wounded Toward Camelot

by A. F. Moritz 

(after Kay Sage)

It was a long trudge

the straight way perfectly

straight with various dreamily

winding traces

streaking that flat pounded

path of a material

unknown to science he said

snaky threads or veins or rills

as if of fresh blood

running before them

but it couldn’t be fresh

it lay there so long

no matter how far

they trudged no source

no wounded side

of any animal 

appeared there were

no animals no matter

how long they trudged 

if it was blood it had

to have dried up

long ago they could

have touched tasted

if the maroon on their finger

whorls was sticky like

menses or dry as the old

saying says as dust but they

refrained they were

afraid

         though it was in fact 

a long trudge they

took on the straight

way there wasn’t much

there they ever came to no 

coverts giants caves chapels and it’s

over now yet somehow

remembering it they remember

they don’t remember it they

never made it it’s

the it’s yet to come

it will still happen to them some

day they saw then but now 

they were going to 

rest after it relieved having

survived were going to

pant silently so they slept and

waked with me here maybe

three times and then

passed on they have

come through as the 

poet said he told me and

told me

            there were

sheets or sails there something

at least collapsed clouds

that fell and smothered

the garden umbrellas a sea

breeze suddenly folded

and their daiquiris are

inside there unreachable

the nonexistent intestines

of a school child’s 

costume ghost we

truly did survive it though

he said we yet might not but

never fear it feels beside

this well that all will be

well and all will be well and it was

beautiful at least thank

goodness for that beautiful truly

there in the

unmoving wind 

and light and dry so

at least it proved

the real

existence

of the three universals

Thomas mentions and since

we have to agree on that much 

the fourth is

also proven 

unity

        but we saw

nothing