Quest's End

You've earned your freedom and I have no right
To hold you, the maiden said to that gallant cavalier,
Parsival, or Pellinore, or was it someone else?
With a spreading of her hands like
The release of a captive butterfly;
Or synonymously, a fettered spirit,
He felt the chainmail of servitude fall.
And wondered if he would ever again
Don this knightly armor, no longer shining;
But dingy and tarnished with dents and chinks
That give mute testimony to ancient encounters
With past dragons and fair damsels and evil demons.
His once innocent heart now burnished in the fires
Of the quest for that noble Grail of Love Ideal.
Unlike the one who sought Beatrice he had no Virgil
To guide him through his own personal Gehenna.
Still he realized that which was long sought, personified
In this wild woman who now so lovingly set him free.
He found himself filled with the romance of leaving her
And knew she would live and be loved in his dreams for ever.

` Donn Deedon
© Dec.1996

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