ROGER E. NAYLOR: Pan and I Met One Hot Night in July

Pan teaching his eromenos, the shepherd Daphnis, to play the pan flute, Roman copy of Greek original c. 100 BCE, found in Pompeii

Pan and I, one hot night, met in a tent in a forest glade
It must have been our fates
He drenched in perspiring sweat in 100-degree heat
I barely able to breathe, so close was he
Mad hysterical laugh of the wood nymph
And I was his at first sight,
Delight of moonshine smile and wild-man craze
A bit rustic and unkempt mountain man,
In idyllic rivers of midnight haze
Pie-eyed and wired on coffee
This mad mystical being
Only calmed by a gentle forehead peck
And he was a man again
Gentle and quiescent spirit of the forest
Off to sleep in Never-Never dreams.…