No More Shadows Poem by Robert Rorabeck

There are no more shadows.
For the sun has chain-ganged
The stars on the dark side
Of the moon,
The hoary bulb he has stuffed
Into a gunnysack and smashed
On the night’s cool table,
Breaking the delicate filament.
He has snuffed out the lights with
Enormous bells and putting his finger
On the earth, to see if it is ready
For eating, he has stopped it
And made it stand before him
Without blinking.
Now I can no longer feel
Your name in the soft shadows
That linger around the canopy in
My mind. No longer do I see your
Truest form, undressed of flatteries
Reclining under the stitched branches
Of an oak tree planted before
The Civil War over the far side
Of the mountain. For all the places
I use to come calling for you, those
Sad and relaxing enclaves that you
Would lie about like settled animals
Around rings of bright water,
Are doused with kerosene and
Ignited.
He has taken you away from me,
And set you there in a relentless cage
In his perfect center, like the crystalline pit
Of a citric geode hung on an emotionless tree.
Unabated, he fondles you, like a surgeon
With precisions flares and blow torches,
Never allowing you sleep and the cool
Return, to slide naked into an ocean of whispering
Shadows,
Never allowing you to douse your head
In my cradle,
Never allowing you to remember that
You loved me,
Never at all—