The resurrection of the ghost of the noble Sir Gawain

Three years ago, I convinced myself that there was a dramatic structure that could house Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Seeing The Mikado in June made me realize that the poem is about the desperation to live; seeing Passion last night made me realize that it revolves around the bedroom and unrequited love and rejected advances. And now, three years later, with absolutely no time, I know what it will look like.

Sir Gawain seems to awake in a lavish lonely room.

Everynight
The same dream.
Everynight.
The slightest of changes
to the smallest of details.

A Christmas festival.
A night of merrymaking,
interrupted.

A giant
all green:
a green knight
enters on a great
green
steed
and presents my king a challenge.

A beheading game.
A Christmas game:
hit for hit
blow for blow
wound for wound.
Head for blessed head.

My king.
Our court.
My sacrifice.
I will keep my words plain
I ask for this battle to be mine.
What is the life of a knight
next to that of a king?

The ax is heavy --
steel and gold.
Lopping off the knight's green head
is easily done.

All done, I think.
The dark deed's done.
The mad dog's down.
And even now
in my dreams
I sigh.

But his green blood
Stains my clothes.
It stains the stones
and the tapestries.

It stains memory.

And then that thunderous laugh.
The deepest laugh of the oldest tree
buried beneath the greenest moss
hidden in the darkest corner
of Britain's most unholy forest.