For Other Joys Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Greenness of walls, of fields and rivers, of the envy of
Foxes: all day long waiting for the wash down the
Long throats of mountains into parlors
Or arcades
Of old muses: as Colorado gets dirty where my mother
Was born, up the silent switchbacks of Golden,
Up the long tailfins of her brother’s mountains
As the days got lost
And the snows melted and she dreamed of beautiful
Swans between the wet pages where she’d been crying-
As in the sky, the airplanes flew with all of those
Stewardesses bound to be jumping overseas,
Their noses bleeding, their hearts pounding fortunately
For other joys.