To That Beautiful Holiday Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I have been to Saint Louis, Alma,
Pulling all that I owned through a wind tunnel that
Was trying to blow out Christmas,
But now I have come back home to find you shining like
A silver beast who has a cure for the homeless
Plague;
And you asked me who Sharon was, and I told you she was not
Real,
Unless we moved to Colorado; but I am just as sure that
Sharon wonders who you are;
But you are beautiful and young, Alma, and your beauty will linger
Beyond the precipices of this world,
And it is this undetectable horizon that I mean to explore,
For it is what my intelligence is good for: I am the captain of
A frightened ship, but this is the way I go while all of
The patrons and the saints are sleeping,
While the virgin has gone down lactating for her young in the grotto:
For I saw you and your man today, and it was not beautiful:
I walked straight by you like a phantasm, and it gave me power:
Alma,
I am not a popular novelist, but this is real, that I am so lonely because
All of my senses are dead to the world:
Alma, it is only you who I can feel, and I need you to brighten my yellow
House down the dead end street near the sea:
Alma, you are the candle stick that I would keep burning
Through the burning pinwheels,
To keep up all night the drunken forts of conquistadors:
Otherwise, I will burn away- Alma,
And it is such a shame, to disappear before the buses of your independence
Arrive,
And carry us to that beautiful holiday.