Poem: "Unless You Happen to Be a Bottle of Wine"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the February 5, 2019 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from bairnsidhe, gingicat, torc87, and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "reminding someone to do something important" square in my 9-5-18 card for the 1000 Words or Less fest. This poem has been sponsored by ng_moonmoth. It belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.


"Unless You Happen to Be a Bottle of Wine"


"Your birthday is coming up,"
Trobby said to Shaeth.
"We should celebrate."

"What for?" Shaeth said.
"Age is just a number.
It’s totally irrelevant --
unless you happen
to be a bottle of wine."

Trobby chuckled. "I know,"
he said, "but the day I found you
in the forest was the best day of
my life, and the day you became
the God of Drunks. I think that's
something worth celebrating."

"It was the best day of
my life too," Shaeth said,
wrapping an arm around
his priest. "Shall we go off
somewhere together, then?"

"No, this should become
one of the high holy days
of our religion," Trobby said.
"So we need to share it."

"What are we going to do,
take the whole congregation
camping?" Shaeth wondered.

"That's a great idea!" Trobby said.
"We can pitch tents and build
campfires and tell the story
of how we found each other."

"And spend half the night
trying to keep the drunks
out of the campfires,"
Shaeth said wryly.

"All right, so we need
to consider safety issues,"
Trobby said. "Someone
should stay sober to monitor.
We can draw lots for that."

"Lay down sitting mats
or logs with wide aisles
between them so people
can stagger without falling,"
Shaeth said, growing inspired.

"We can mull wine over
the campfires," Trobby said.

"Maybe buy a better grade of
wine that usual," Shaeth said,
"and a bigger cauldron."

"Beef stewed in red wine.
Campfire mushrooms in wine.
Beer candied bacon and
beer pancakes," said Trobby.
"Brandied apples. Rum cake."

Shaeth's mouth watered.
"You can cook with liquor
over a campfire?" he said.

"Who knows, maybe someone
will invent new recipes for
campfire cooking with booze
to worship you," Trobby said.

Shaeth lit up. "I would receive
that service with great pleasure."

"We can make this our time
to mark anniversaries, too,"
Trobby said. "After all, it was
the beginning of everything."

"What anniversaries?" Shaeth said.

"Whatever people want to mark,"
Trobby said. "When they joined us.
How long they've kept drinking at
an easy level, or stopped drinking,
if that's something they aim for.
Accomplishing a quest for you."

"We could make year-coins from
beer bottles and wine bottles, or
clay water jugs for former drunks,"
Shaeth mused. "I know spells
for manipulating glass like that."

"This is going to be great,"
Trobby said. "We'll get people
out of the town, into the woods,
have some fun and a whole lot
of booze. I can hardly wait!"

Shaeth was surprised to find
that he felt the same way.

For the first time in a long while,
he looked forward to something
with a deep sense of eagerness.

And he hadn't even bought the wine yet.

* * *

Notes:

"Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine."
― Joan Collins

Enjoy recipes for Campfire Mulled Wine, Beer Candied Bacon, Beer Pancakes, Red Wine Braised Brisket, Brandied Apples, and Rum Cake. Regarding the Campfire Mushrooms, note that you can actually reconstitute dried mushrooms in wine instead of water.

Practice campfire safety. Anyone drinking alcohol should stay well away from the flames, and the firekeeper should stay sober. Know how to take care of a drunk person.

Comments

[thnidu]

Oh yummy! I'm hardly a drinker, but I'm gonna save some of those recipes.


• Maybe buy a better grade of
wine that usual
→ than

[gingicat]

I love how all the Shaeth poems are essentially people teaching him how to like himself and be helpfully and comfortably social.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Well, he sure didn't get that as God of Evil. Meanwhile, Shaeth is providing homey services to people who mostly didn't get any before. Win-win.

[wispfox]

I do love this setting!

[mama_kestrel]

I'm amused. Aside from not cooking it over a campfire, the red wine braised brisket is pretty much exactly how I cook a brisket normally. I put in a lot more vegetables, and let the oven do the work, but it's cooked in a cast iron dutch oven at a bare simmer. Oven is set at 200 F.; the brisket cooks for 4-5 hours, then the oven is turned down to 170 (its lowest setting) and allowed to just sit there until serving time. Yum!

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

We usually go for corned beef brisket in the pressure cooker.