Seasons Of A Bicycle Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Do good work now,
Knowing that by sunset the vessel will be emptied;
And if the voyage is not epic,
Let it be familiar
To orchards under roman ruins,
To Spanish dragonflies
Confessing to the seasons of a bicycle;
And if the gift if not certain,
Let it be prolifically humble, yet succinct;
And if not filled with vast friends,
Make sure there is a dog or two to lick your
Toes while lying down in the otherwise empty canvas,
And svelte snouts to kiss where her brighter lips should;
And an olive tree for shade:
If worry sets in, and there is no society to fill,
Become picaresque,
Challenge the constables who might press-gang you,
And make you bring your nimble fingers to scars of cotton:
Ride all the way to Orleans and uplift the siege,
Even if you are only a child:
Float down long voyages, or tramp:
Don’t worry so much about keeping up with yourself.
Let off searching out the injustices of well endowed
Monsters,
And spend time at the carnival, congratulating dwarfs
On their harrowing resiliencies
To slip into the footsteps of unmindfully average giants;
But never pay for it. Live in your car,
And neck out in your front yard, the weedy drive
In movie theatre,
Appreciating the starlets but never falling for them
All the way.
Make love to the early nimbus rising from the clutches
Of the beach,
Where the ebony hatchlings are scuttling,
Wanting to sequin her effluent dress
The black diamonds a starlit night accentuates;
for even she does not
Know where she is going,
Pressing herself against the earth into which all of your
Forbearers are sleeping in the latest strata not far above
The Incas and them the saber-tooth and the dinosaurs;
And say now that I must go without a word,
I go then with the utmost justice of nature into which
Imperfect gifts like me are slipping ever day,
Princesses who die after two years, at last,
Perceiving death’s cocoon presupposing in an aloof
Divinity, grapes so high up entwined in the shade
Trees,
Having faith that there is a ladder in this orchard
and a little girl
In the lee who is forever singing,
Encouraging the transformations even further.