no mother needed – apparently; simply born within the
patriarchal legacy, aromatic right from the start and 
already robed in the royal purple of kings

no mother needed as he rises full of promise, strong 
of his own accord, self-sufficient, one-of-a-kind,
anointed with the frankincense and myrrh of 
his father’s own funeral pyre.

no mother needed, but the father is revered, his 
honor and reputation preserved and feted for eternity,
ancestral ashes hidden away lest the paternal lineage
become tainted by the scrutiny of daylight

no mother needed to nourish him,
to prepare him for flight,
to remind him of inborn vulnerabilities,
no reference for humility and compromise,
no haven for non-transactional love

"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!"
ah, but the phoenix wears no such 
pedestrian footwear

and in the end, in his nest alone,
consumed by the flames of his own making,
his only solace is that a son will emerge
to give his life meaning

It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!

Day Twenty prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life. Include one spoken phrase.