While They Are Away Poem by Robert Rorabeck

What word to begin with to cross the fjord
Of troublingly planted anthems:
There they are waving like a sea of grass, like
Girls in bells or
Poisonous tulips;
And I can hear the truck coming even now,
Coming to pick me up and take me off to work or
School;
But down there the dragon sleeps in his quiet and
Tiny sororities;
Sleeps with the colonies of water flutes:
He wake up and divides and all day long the dwarves
Bring him his gold,
And thieves tell him where he can find things:
All day long he doesn’t even open an eye, all cool
And green and wimbled
Like water chestnuts-
So very sly and comfortable is this mighty king
In his shady hold,
That he doesn’t even mind that I’ve been peeking down
Into the cracks of a highway’s well just to
Get an envious vision of his court;
For even I begin imaging what I he needs from me
While I close my eyes through the tightly vested lectures
Of arithmetic and green lawnmowers;
How I might go down to him and appease him
And bring him gifts of approach to become mutual in the steep
Valley of his wonderful truancy,
Maybe like a soccer field sunken in her distantly burn eyes,
That only seem to be sad while they are away.