God-Human Hercules  


There once did live
My fortressed  treehouse escape,
With hammered sticks as steps,
Giving flight from reality,

My stronghold in the sky.

A tree that housed so many dreams,
Now but a burned out cavity,
Remains of remembered life
Entombed by climbing vines.

Within this tree,

Now of charred tenacity,
Imagined remains of crumbling statue of strength,
Steadfastly moving skyward atop its roots.

A wild flowered embrace surrounds its trunk,
Reaching up left and right,
Forgetting not the limbs
That once shaded its mythical protector.

How impassioned is the moment,

Upon visiting where once I did fantasize
My own kind of heroics,
Hidden by the branches and leaves,
Guarded by mythology I knew little of

Alone with my imagination as partner

Yet…

Today,

How prescient is the fantasized stone reality,
Askew like a court jester pondering me

From on high,
Seeming able to laugh at himself
And coaxing from me
A mutual grin of acceptance,

Knowing mythology           

Had delivered to my boyhood

The strongest god-human on earth.

Times change.