Word & Question

Word & Question is a meme hosted at Shredded Cheddar. What happens is you send Enbrethiliel, or potential future host, one word and one question, each of your own choosing, according to whatever strikes your fancy. She then takes everyone's words and questions and randomizes them. She sends back to you a word and question that other people have chosen. You then have to write a poem in answer to the question; the poem must also include the one word in it somewhere.

The Word I received: Legend

The Question I received: Are we there yet?

I really wanted to write the poem as a direct answer to the question, but I got pulled in another direction -er, distraction:

Legend turned to prospect in Pizarro's
steaming brain, and prospect fell to languishing
mid death-smelling flies;
swords of the Spanish court, hacking at vines
like frantic bones warding off demise;
the famished Native and Conquistador train
began to pine.

Brute Gonzalo turned on his men and roared:
"Unless you want my sword plunged in your throat,
I swear, do not ask me one more time!
When you see the gold is when we'll have arrived!"

Fickle Gonzalo gave up, a few hours
after stating the above - that driver, starver,
chewing up men into his jungle dreams:
he who did not have the means, nor know the way;
nor know there was no there at all.