Sunday, June 21, 2015

Summer Solstice/Father’s Day—New Murfin Poetry for the Occasion

The Green Man.


Regular readers are aware of my inexplicable habit of composing poetry based on random coincidences of the calendar.  I have done it again.   Here is the incriminating evidence.

Summer Solstice/Father’s Day
June 21, 2015

Perhaps, after all, I am the Green Man,
          and my Father before me
                   who took to the woods with rod and rifle
          and his father before him
                   who grew strawberries by the porch
          and the fathers before  him
                   who were orchardmen in Ohio
          and way back those earlier yet
                   who pulled stones from Yorkshire fields
                   for their masters.

Save the complexion, I look the part enough
          with my shaggy goatee, wild eyebrows,
                   and neglected hair which could sprout
                   oak and ivy.

But my wild forest years are well behind me,
          I plant nothing but my feet on the sidewalk
                   and my ass in a desk chair,
          I raise nothing but questions, concerns,
                   and indignation,
          my fertility was snipped away
                   long decades past
          my virility—don’t make me laugh,
                    no Goddess  awaits in a glade
                   under the triumphant Sun.

Perhaps I am not the Green Man after all
          just an old fool and fraud,
          but, hey, isn’t that all that is needed
          to be just Dad instead.

—Patrick Murfin


1 comment:

  1. You ARE the Green Man! That's why you were born on St. Patrick's Day!

    ReplyDelete