Epic Birthday Poem

I’ve been commissioned to fashion a ballad that stretches truth while bending time;

The claims I claim may not be valid, but no one will care so long as I rhyme.

Robert Andrew Anderson was born underneath the heat of a mid-July sun—

Plucked from a stock of Midwestern corn—fully bearded and shooting a gun.

His parents instantly discovered that he was no ordinary lad,

Yet they worked to refine the majestic creature that they had.

Before the boy ever uttered his first and darling word,

His parents shuddered from the ominous sounds they heard.

For off in the distance, perhaps in the garage—

Dith their eyes deceive them? Was this a mirage?—

Baby Bob stood, power tools in hand,

Building home additions his parents never planned.

Year after year, milestones passed flawlessly,

Bobby boy had grown and set off on his own odyssey.

Sailing across each of 10,000 lakes,

He’d sweat in the sun, and freeze in the flakes.

However, long nights of harsh whipping wind

Never bothered him, his beard untrimmed.

Resolute in his focus, and stoic amid struggles,

He’d feast upon locusts, and tolerate us muggles.

Unfazed by the sweet siren’s song leading headlong to the crag;

He strapped himself to the shanty’s mast—beard fluttering like a flag.

Yet there was no time to be distracted; he was on a mission from God

To find himself a worthy crew, to gather himself a squad.

 One by one they each did come; the people he did accrue.

Not any one was like the other, all horses of different hue.

This eclectic group of ragtag misfits surely was a surly crew,

But he’d teach these plebs a thing or two if it were the last he’d ever do!

It tried his patience, and sickened his sights,

But he’d teach them how to fix their lights.

The news he found must be fake, for it is such a piece of cake,

For Pedro’s sake, must he really help them to change a brake?

Still, his adventures sailed on drifting uninterrupted,

Until one fateful moment when the night skies erupted.

Down from the darkness and out of its abyss,

Robbie smashed each star with only his fists.

Not a bruise upon his skin, nor hair had been singed,

His might was so mighty even the waters did cringe.

They carried him upon their back, rolling with the tide.

The waves they washed upon the shore where he met his bride.

They pitched their camp within the woods as the trees above did quiver.

From that day forth on the soil they stood lay the banks of the colossal Elk River.

Go west, young man; go, tell it on a mountain!

Tell everyone at work around the water fountain.

Recite this tale both far and wide across the world's terrain

About a boy whose commanding pride others merely feign.

So, take from this a birthday wish from my poem’s final breath of air.

Thank you, Robbie, for all you do, and all the ways you care!