Through The Quiet Order Of These Prayers Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Wonderfully alone, without any sort of father,
And just looking at the trees, their slender throats
Basking under the hidden lights- They go up and
Up well trimmed, patient in their dances before
The red bricks of well inebriated sororities:
How I used to love her under here, I did- Like a child,
Tipping over my chairs and gin, thinking it was something else,
Six years ago, a house floating on the waves with so many
Mothers lost in their kitchens, and airplanes far away
On the other side of slow going canals:
Oh, I am going to find her again, and I’m going
To pay for it by the Order of Jesus- all my ancient sins
On a collection plate whispered beneath those unturning
Boughs; They will wait and see how I come and gossip
About me all alone, like a very lonely wedding procession,
Trouble on my brow; neither this or that, or any sort of
Profession, but the shadows the dark ink of my work,
And I will be thinking about a nocturnal lover even while
She inhabits the horizon’s far distance, and turns over against
Him in their well proportioned bed,
Their shed rind licked by the silver teeth of waves;
She spends her time remembering his name
And saying so, never realizing how I inhabit her through
The quiet order of these prayers.