Before Our Time Poem by Robert Rorabeck

All calmed and cooled like classes that are
Over and found to be insignificant as the loves I had before
Her,
In the daycares of third grade- all the waters on their backs
In the drainage canals cracking legumes;
All the teachers as hot as wax and then made to cool wherever
They fall.
Not a deciduous tree to be found, and in my mind only the
Eroticisms of substitute teachers,
Nothing truly scarred, the moon bleached of its patinas and
Palls;
And I have only read Encyclopedia Brown, I haven’t yet missed
You or follow the scent of your echoes down the halls:
Little patrols as vibrant as greeting cards; and the grass as
Green as lavender bathing suits: and all the insects uniformly
Green like lush young girls in prepatory school carrying their
Books of slither and drool;
And the day starts out as a song; and then bullies blacken it a little
Around the robustness of its rind; but it is made even more beautiful,
Like a penumbra glistening on a coal pile in the deepest of winter,
Grandfather smoking a green forest;
And your eyes closed and soft as Easter brail, because
That was before your time.