Monday, February 2, 2009

The Beard is Gone

The Beard is gone. Long live the Beard. And, I’ve felt naked all day long. But, just but, I’ve this feeling the Beard will return, reincarnated in some form (perhaps as a goatee?). The face calls for it, and I think I can hear the Beard respond.
This grand experiment, like prohibition, methinks, has gone a-rye. The good-old-boys, who fain would be drinking, are, instead, seeking their razors for to hide. And they be rye-less, and some, whiskerless. But some mothers and some sweethearts weep, as Rachel, for faces obscured by obscurantist puns. And they weep too, for men fled to the Egypt of the hunting camp, where whiskers wear well with womanish warrants wax weak, whining wistfully, windborne, whimsical and most certainly out of bounds. Yes, the freedom train breaks for beards, though tickets are required. The currency is rare, and the exchange rate steep enough to frighten even the most seasoned investment banker. But some pay it. Some pay it. And some wish they had. But others find the Beard itself to be currency of worth and think, laughingly, chuckling, of their comrades of old in Egypt, cold and bathless, while his arm slips softly asleep ‘neath the shoulder of she who holds the warrant on his beard. He chuckles and follows his arm to lovely dreams.