A Satyr Mourning a Doe
Poem - by Roger Brezina
(Early November on a county road)
It’s against the law to drive at night with headlights off
But alone on the road and miles from town
The full of the moon creates a golden, mystical realm:
A dusting of snow like baby duckling down,
The stubble of harvested fields like bristles gilt,
And the asphalt black in sharp contrast
With snow on either side allows that anything perceived
Shall disappear into one’s “educated” past.
In wonderment I drove when on the shoulder up ahead
A shape that I supposed to be a bear
Sat hunched as though he feasted on a roadkill deer.
I flicked my headlights on, and in the glare
A satyr threw his face toward mine—his cheeks and eyes
Overflowing streams of tears. He gasped a sort of bark
And to his forehead pressed the heels of his hands
Then sprang and—bolting—vanished in the dark
I know to drive at night with headlights off is wrong—
It’s reckless, dangerous, against the law—
But I saw a satyr mourning a roadkill doe—
A sight which others cannot claim they saw.
Roger Brezina
A Satyr Mourning a Doe, poem, Issue 56/57, Fall/Winter 2021
To date, Roger Brezina has written over 10,400 poems that as hardcopies make a stack 3 ½ feet high. Some are factual, some fictitious, some fanciful, some historical, some hysterical, some are serious, some delirious, and the volume is ridiculously unmanageable. His poems have appeared in Byline, The Saturday Evening Post, Poetry Quarterly, Yesterday’s Magazette, Amelia, Verses, For Poets Only, The Moccasin, Senior Perspective, The New Prague Times, The Leading Edge, The James-Younger Gang Journal, and 3 anthologies. Roger grew up on a farm in south central Minnesota and graduated from Mankato State University (as it was called in 1977) after he had complicated his mind with physics, math, and astronomy. After 5 decades of various engineering and technical positions, he now resides on 5 acres of the old homestead trying to uncomplicate his mind. He has 5 grown children and 6 grandchildren who reside in his heart.
“In the photo which is a few years old, that's me on the right.”
Get to know Roger...
Birthday?
September 18, 1949
When did you start writing?
As soon as I was old enough to.
When and what and where did you first get published?
Not counting "in memoriam" poems in my hometown newspaper, I was first published in an anthology in 1989. It was one of the memorial poems about my father that appeared in hometown newspaper. It received an honorable mention and was published their WORLD TREASURY OF GOLDEN POEMS.
Why do you write?
Because I'm literate and writing is an opportunity to prove it.
Why do you write Science Fiction or Fantasy?
It's more believable than the news.
Who is your favorite author? Your favorite story?
My favorite author is Emily Dickinson.
My favorite story is "The Lord of the Rings." (Isn't it everybody's?)
What are you trying to say with your fiction?
That Reality is a prison that we can't escape from except through fiction.
If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
If he comes back to haunt us, then he'll badger us worse than when he was alive.
Do you blog?
No, but I slog in the fog and it rhymes with blog.