J.C. Scharl

Peredur's Question

“When you came to the court of the Lame King and when you saw there the young man carrying the sharpened spear, and from the tip of the spear a drop of blood streaming down to the young man’s fist, and you saw other wonders there too—you did not question their meaning or their cause.” –The Mabinogion

Once more All Hallow’s Day is done.

Last night, a bony wind slipped in

To All Souls’ and gripped and wrung

From startled light its final gilt,

So that today, a single glance

From that pale, astonished sun

Drops the vines out in the yard

To slime, fouls the hyssop’s sweetness,

Crusts the leaves to scabrous gray.

Now the sun’s withdrawn, distraught,

Behind sharp clouds all tipped with red.

Strange howls ride the scalloped air,

And grit, and lashings of dry rain.

What ancient wound is this, once more

Punched deep into time’s side? What shapely

Spear lanced in between the year’s

Sharp ribs, and what, oh what the meaning

Of this gutted sun?

                         I ask

Myself none of these things, not now,

Not yet, not while I hasten down

The street beside my daughter’s quaking

Bike, not while my son screams out

Encouragements from the side door—

Almost there! You can do it!

Hurry, beat the rain!—not while

We all, toweled dry, huddle

With the baby on the couch…

I dare not probe these things too deeply,

Or at all. Outside, the world,

This wondrous wounded world, withdraws

once more, wasted and cold; once more

we reach the end of time; once more

The precious question slips away,

With all its dreadful grace, unasked. 

J.C. Scharl is a poet and critic. Her poetry has appeared internationally on the BBC and in some of the nation’s top poetry journals, including The New Ohio Review, The Hopkins Review, and The American Journal of Poetry. Her criticism has appeared in many magazines and journals, including Dappled Things, The Lamp, Fare Forward, Religion & Liberty, and others. She is the author of the poetry collection Ponds (Poiema Poetry Series, 2024) and the verse play Sonnez Les Matines (Wiseblood, 2023).