Before The Mountain Begins To Cry Poem by Robert Rorabeck

This is a wound that an arrow cannot cut:
This is a sleepless place basking amidst the hills:
Where the young wolves drink
Forever from the throats of starling foals:
And then they are gone
In the moaning sunshine, where the fences lay
Down and naked,
And useless,
And the pools are so supple and shallow,
That you can dip half of your fingers
In and pull up a beautiful fish
Big enough for your lunch- and it is for awhile
A song,
And then into midnight it is a church,
With so many somber amusements and fallen trees
You have to step around:
And there is snow white in her glass coffin
Next to the spring my mother used to take me to
With the dogs; but you still have to figure
Out if you love me,
While the airplanes fill up the sky, as if
The wings of airplanes in a carnival of breathy
Gardens- as if incestual twins multiply
Perpetually,
And clouding over the final results that this doesn’t
Have to be forever:
That just has to be in the print of this heartbeat
Before the mountain begins to cry.