Excalibur

I was going to cheat, Tuesday night, and use a ekphrastic poem I’d already written, but I didn’t like it when I wrote it and I liked it even less now. But much to my surprise, I did get my a new poem done.

An Ekphrasis poem is one which is based on another work of art, usually a painting or sculpture. This style of writing is characteristic in such works as Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Byron's “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”, or Shelley's "On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery."

When I was a teenager, my high school English class took a trip to the Stratford Festival (that’s Stratford, Ontario) to see Richard III. The Avon Theatre is set in a park, and we had some time to kill, so a few of us went to the art gallery that was also in the park.

That’s where I saw the painting called Excalibur, by Eric Byers (or maybe it was Buyers). It just blew me away. I could actually feel the mist as it parted for the knights. If I’d had $350.00 (which was its price) I would have bought it on the spot. It was the first, and pretty much the only, time I ever felt a painting was worth its price tag.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’ve tried doing a search for the painting and the artist on the internet, but I’ve had no luck. I’m not even sure the art gallery exists anymore, never mind possibility of getting any information from it about an art show from so many years ago. But I will never forget that painting.


Excalibur

At first glance there’s only the mist,
bilious clouds of soft white
with a blush of pink and blue.
The magic is triggered,
the knights emerge –
ancient, emaciated, ghostly.
Armour and tabards hang loose
on cadaverous figures.
Water laps at the greaves
shielding their legs.
Dead grass whispers
on the banks of a stream.
The sighing wind sounds
like a harp strung dirge.
The knights draw closer,
a stately procession
along the river of time.
Cool mist brushes my skin.
I’m filled with yearning.
There is no doubt in my mind
that if I stared any longer
I might follow in their wake.
How often have I looked back
and wished that I had?