Ulysseus

my mariners!
come with me to tackle weeds;
to choke the fragile brown grasses
which grow beneath our feet
in this new east coast heat wave of 2012;
to rip stubborn roots out of the rocky soil;
to ogle women wearing unIslamic dress;
to drink to the stars our Gods placed in the local stadium.
we're old, but old guys can still get it up,
use the mower
and the axe,
the digging iron and the shears;
to make a path to the far horizon
of a boundary line my neighbor might have drawn.
but we can smash through any fence that sucker might
have made and hurdle over any barrier!
my son has his own mind about our property;
i have mine.
i want a hand-built gazebo and will toil excessively to complete one.
he wants to sit by an evening camp fire
where the wet wood hisses and crackles in a small depression of the burning Earth,
entertaining his community of friends with endless songs of compassion.
i must dig the pit,
like Lyndon Johnson dug America into a deep hole in Vietnam,
while tugging at the ears of his unhappy dog.
i have no puppy to lift, and he had his important work to gather
thousands of uniformed men and send them packing, few of them proud
of his leadership or his ability to tackle stubborn weeds.
my mariners!
we still have tasks not unbecoming men who've watched tv on a
Sunday afternoon, when the seas were calm and the ladies hot.
i will travel great distances to find a long-eared pup,
even if the winds begin to Howl and my arms grow thin.
so let us venture forth,
out of the sand traps and through the woods,
beyond sight of the devious scoundrels of Bain Capital,
setting sail for a seldom visited national park
where we may govern ourselves.