Dan Guenther: ‘Contemplating a Statue of the Reclining Pan, Nimbin, 2012’

Contemplating a Statue of the Reclining Pan, Nimbin, 2012

Far from Arcadia’s ancient olive groves
where the willowy Syrinx
fled a predatory
and cloven-hoofed Pan,
you find his reclining likeness asleep
in a garden grotto off Cecil Street,
a replica of a classical antiquity
attributed to one Francesco da Sangallo,
the former associate of Michelangelo.

Like a bald and grandfatherly Silenus
you study the statue
while a crowd of winsome revelers gathers
around to snap photos
of Pan’s protuberant belly
and priapic parts.

Such mischief evokes the naughty maenads
who worshiped Dionysus late into the night,
the killers of Orpheus who relieved their lust
through frenzied Orphic rites,
and brings to mind
memories of your own crazed yearnings,
back when you and your love once danced
through Nimbin’s woodlands,
giving yourselves up to the goat-man’s music.

Dan Guenther