honey and sting

Father's Day

Methos shades his eyes
and looks to the sky.
Sky Father, Earth Mother,
they sometimes said,
in the places he has lived.
And sometimes, Sky Mother,
Earth Father.

Horns and hooves and dancing in the grove.
They didn't need a ceremony
to feel "male bonding" --
it came naturally enough from hunting,
wooing, comrades in arms --
strong arms, and stronger hearts...

Methos sips the wine in the slender glass
he's brought into the greensward
in the city where he currently resides.
A libation? Not to "the god"
not to mentors, masters, kings,
and certainly not to a "father" who is at best,
hypothetical. Not to brothers, gone now,
though he pauses for a moment
on that thought.

"I am my own," he intones, then laughs a little
at the solemnity of his delivery.
"..Progenitor, patron, papa."
Too long ago, or perhaps,
simply made too alien
by the passage of time...

He squints again, into the sun.
In a language he's forgotten, let alone
can name,
there is a word for "Daddy."