Summer solstice service
As I usually do this time of year, I am leading a Summer Solstice service this coming Sunday for our UU church. This year it also happens to be Father's day. I looked back at past Orders of Service, and see that it's been 10 years since we last overlapped with a Father's day. We are calling this year's service. Summer Solstice: We Honor the Fathers. I found a number of Father God stories throughout the ages that we will read thru the service. I wanted to do Zeus, and couldn't find a good positive tale about him, so I decided to write a poem about him, and let him carry all the shadow stuff about fatherhood. Behold . . .
Zeus’s Lament
Mine was the wrathful eye, the scolding tongue, and the heavy hand
Filled with thunderbolts for those who failed to listen.
Father of the Gods, Ruler of the Universe -
It was a weighty name to bear, with endless tasks to do.
Perhaps this will excuse the little time I had
for small ones underfoot
whining, complaining -
so many lives entangled
it was enough to spawn a migraine
not the least of which, a daughter
sprung fully grown from my brow
ready to conquer the world
with hardly a word from me.
Look at all the rest -
How quickly grown they are.
Sprouting overnight from needy eyes and sticky hands
To young adults
Braving their own dark comedies,
Myself, now a bit part shuffled off the stage.
Surely, you can hardly blame me.
It’s not as though my own father
Were any sort of role model,
Swallowing his children whole
Snip, snap
In a single bite.
Fatherly guidance was short on the ground when I was young.
O, these many offspring, these progeny of mine
Will they recall the hard tread of my foot on the stair,
My urging, cajoling - always pushing them on toward greatness
Or the tear in my eye when they stumbled and fell?
I may not remember all their names,
But our first meeting,
A soft kiss pressed to a downy head
a mere thistle of weight snug in my arms -
it lies carved so deeply in my heart.
Zeus’s Lament
Mine was the wrathful eye, the scolding tongue, and the heavy hand
Filled with thunderbolts for those who failed to listen.
Father of the Gods, Ruler of the Universe -
It was a weighty name to bear, with endless tasks to do.
Perhaps this will excuse the little time I had
for small ones underfoot
whining, complaining -
so many lives entangled
it was enough to spawn a migraine
not the least of which, a daughter
sprung fully grown from my brow
ready to conquer the world
with hardly a word from me.
Look at all the rest -
How quickly grown they are.
Sprouting overnight from needy eyes and sticky hands
To young adults
Braving their own dark comedies,
Myself, now a bit part shuffled off the stage.
Surely, you can hardly blame me.
It’s not as though my own father
Were any sort of role model,
Swallowing his children whole
Snip, snap
In a single bite.
Fatherly guidance was short on the ground when I was young.
O, these many offspring, these progeny of mine
Will they recall the hard tread of my foot on the stair,
My urging, cajoling - always pushing them on toward greatness
Or the tear in my eye when they stumbled and fell?
I may not remember all their names,
But our first meeting,
A soft kiss pressed to a downy head
a mere thistle of weight snug in my arms -
it lies carved so deeply in my heart.