Sarah’s Man…Revisited

Today friend/poet/writer/publisher, Jerred Metz, celebrated his 80th birthday; I had the honor of composing and reciting a poem in his honor:

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Sarah’s man has a voice made for radio,

dances tall like no one is watching,

still wears his hair long,

says to call him Grumpy not Grandpa.

Sarah’s man writes novels and poems,

sees angels in the house, on battlefields,

watches fire and comets in the sky,

goes on his honeymoon and invites Earl Durand to move in,

thinks Gracie Allen should have been president,

spoons butter from a jar,

feeds his brain in twenty-five cent portions,

drinks the dipper dry,

speaks like rain – cold stone, blood and bone,

consults with Conan Doyle about a tunnel in France

and in his next breath talks nonsense with a jackdaw.

Sarah’s man is 80, acts like 60,

he credits his loving younger wife;

he is profane, simple, spiritual and sublime;

he reassures with kind words and bright smile;

he has the second-best flowered shirt collection in South Carolina

and covets my number one flowered shirt collection;

he trolls flea markets, garage sales and dead people’s auctions

for old pamphlets, recipes, farmers logs, badly written plays,

advertisements and assorted junk;

once he convinced a librarian

they needed his junk in their special collections

to make room for more junk;

Sarah fears what future obsession

he may find in someone else’s garbage,

but is happy he trashed

his broom and rat murder collections.

Sarah’s man confuses gourmet with gourmand,

drinks Turkish coffee served by a Persian waitress

at Arabesque restaurant on Devine Street;

he is a farm boy, barrel maker, chicken culler,

professor, camp counselor, director of services for the aging,

engineering recruiter, breathing therapist, poet, writer, editor;

he speaks with his Midrashim teachers and ancestors;

he dreamwalks with friends and poets along the River Styx,

he is carrier of the peace pipe, a Heyoka, Yuwipi drummer;

he is a singing bone, my friend and he is Sarah’s man.

4-23-23