Posthumous Meeting

(Based on T.H. White's Once and Future King)

Merlin, as God is my witness,
I’m glad to see you.
If I were here as Dog Boy,
I would lick your face.
It's queer, you know
never knowing where it is you go,
or, even, if you'll come again.

I wish Lance and Gwen could be here.
Maybe better not,
so much that went wrong between us!
I think of some things I did right.
I wore the crown,
but all my wisdom was yours.

Do you recall the night I was a gander,
stood on tide flats out in a wind?
That night is the one I remember
as a time of peace.
I liked the way that I flew,
wind the one restraint.

There's always mixed joy in remembrance,
too often woe.
I suppose you know how it is.
There was that stone
and a hilt sticking out like a knife.

My life might have been quite different  
had I failed to draw
my sword from the stone as was fated.
Never mine alone.