Do you chase that other Eden,
ruled by nine sisters, that dreaming place
that swims just past wave-kissed vision,
where women pose as mermaids
and stretch their arms over the Atlantic?

This is the heart of legend, spawning the ore
used to forge the sword in the stone:
the land of mist and promises,
where kings are made,
where all journeys end.

There are no more golden apples.
We know earth is earth, stone hard
and bone-breaking beautiful
if we take our eyes from the grail,
from the ideas that swallow us deeper
than any big fish and do not release us,
spat up on the shore
where we are called to be prophets,
gasping, wet, stinking of the sea;
but instead break us down,
acid eating even our bones.

The magic of all quests is the quest,
the things learned along the way,
not the won object winking and whispering
eternal salvation, immortal…