Merlin Goes Underground Sarah Fuhro
Master of Magic,
Merlin bends his silver locks,
He enters dark earth.
A tomb, a womb,
a castle underground
now his kingdom.
Some say lovely Ninevah
willed him there.
Foolish in his dotage,
was he easy prey to illusions
of fairy women
with their watery tricks
who wished him extinguished
in the cold, moist ground?
Is it true they wanted him
covered over with leaves,
compost for another age,
when powers of a new sort
might rescue him from cold storage?
Did he enter his cave, his tomb,
his hole in the ground
under the illusion
he was scheduled for a lover’s tryst
in some lovely castle
built of spun sugar and spite?
Or is this the story of a confluence?
Two streams come together,
blend their crystal waters,
deep beneath the earth
in joyous union.
Did they run underground together,
She of the shining eyes,
and old Merlin the wise?
Did they burble up, twined and blended
to emerge in the holy springs,
the red and the white waters
of Avalon, the Isle of Glass?
Was there a sacred marriage
between the magician’s highway
in the Milky Way,
and the twirling spires of Caer Sidhi,
the land of starry faery,
that circles the earth;
and marks the journey of the Sun,
through twelve sacred seasons.
