107. Grandma’s tales
she saw it first
a hundred years ago,
like silver, she says,
through the water
& bright as you like,
bright as the moon,
but an instrument of death
– for as he gasped his last,
the antiquarian trembling
exclaimed that
– what you have here is legend
and priceless beyond compare,
Excalibur itself, & myth made real;
– but maybe myths were never meant for
mortal hands & eyes says she,
so now it lays there still,
and waits, returned,
beneath the ripples
whilst Arthur only sleeps until
his name is called again
and the lake restores
her charge to him once more.