Phoenix Poem by Robert Rorabeck

When I saw you after several years,
You were the young motion of a god learning
To walk for the first time, as the cars blew by you,
And how many thirsty boys the same as me did not
Turn your way, their visions focusing from the blur,
The eyelids hooked on that form you had taken to
Showoff how delightfully you could shape the flesh, but it was
Only I who knew you for what you were, and loved
You for it, for I could remember coming to find you
Before I was born, in those first lives where my soul
Found itself suited in ancestors, I saw you there serving
Drinks before they invented electricity, you went
Well with kerosene lamps hissing with the taste
Of vinegar on the tongue and the sprawling lawless towns
Of the prairie, where you were the only decoration,
Too delicate to touch, you somehow survived outside
In the wind on the yellow grass, all of that which was
Part of you spread out unto the roots of mountains,
Which were yours as well, and so to recognize you
Now, and to see the sway of every sea in your hips, you
Could wonder how I could just drive on by as you
Jogged the other way, taking everything beautiful,
but read this now for that was
Near a decade ago and still the vision remains, behind
It all is all I see, you there, a fine young god moving
For the first time in that decoration of flesh, now speared
Like a blazing sun in back of my eyes never to burn out,
So that when this too dies, those of my offspring sure to
Remember will see you for what you are, an eternal thing
Meant to flit and leap your beauty through their windshields
So that they too feel the familiar longing you’ve brought down through
their ancestry, thus what you are remains always as you pass them by.