A Single Pine Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Single pine
stranded upon a sandy hill
here you remain
in a haunted crèche of coniferous rises and valleys,
lost in between the stony caesuras
at the bottom of a maze of unwound lovers
winnowed by the disenchantments of time

So far away from the suburbias
where the milkmaids walk
clothed only by sunlight
unforgettable center pieces of nature's
strutting architecture

Where the tourists take their
summer loves,
returning to outdoor movie theatres
that cool in the dimming visions of sepia's dust,

single pine,
haunted by the sterile poisons
of the past's unremembered dreams,
as far from the sylvan evergreens
whose dew-sapped boughs entwine in
nocturnal yuletide wreaths
comingling with elves and hares
in an unending boreal table of Christmas

Not even a poisonous serpent ungulates
closer to inspect such ghastly loneliness-
bones of master less dogs and the pottery of extinct tribes
ring your salted mound,
embittered in the boreal maze unspoken of
by brighter and more well known fairy-tales
that yet flutter above this abducted entanglement.

In a coffer of needles
stretching pointedly towards that thieving moonlight,
a man disavowed of his heartfelt trust
metamorphosed now, yet trying to grasp
the sunlight stolen from long ago reflections of your love.