The fisher king speaks:

Five million breaths each year

and though they are hungry, ragged,

I keep nothing from the barren land;

it knows my body starves.

Impotent and desperate, I fish.

My daughter and the king's man I tricked,

knowing their physical union

would bring he who'd heal the land.

In scheming this, I full earned my sore.

Grandfather'd and maimed, I fish.

The wound, not voluntary, never healed,

and could not be borne easy;

but patience is bought with water,

and held like communion in grails.

Wounded but rich, I fish.