The Children Of These Things Poem by Robert Rorabeck

A toy with gears, the day winds up in a game:
After two walks, and the moon is out; my dog lies
Down at my feet,
And I drink without interruptions- Perhaps my Adonis
Palm is dying in the tiny back yard beneath the
Mango tree,
And the green stalks of the fish-tale palm’s waterfall,
That Alma looked up into a week or two ago,
And said, how beautiful- this little space of land
Of five rooms where even the cockroaches
Seem to have hearts,
And the fleas tickle like mermaids- and the girls never
Come over, they just ride their bicycles and
Skin their knees over the lawns,
So even when their mothers lose their favorite children
They remain just as beautiful- pearls and Oxnard
Damming their hearts- little birds
Blue tears stolen to fit in there- outside the windows
And the hedge of ixora, a chorus of engineers
Sings of a flood- and the rattlesnakes boil out of the
Earth,
Kissing and playing their instruments as the children of
These things go away again to school.