Better And More Glorious Men Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’m going to a wedding in Colorado,
Taking the highway which snakes up the plateau,
While in the west first rise the Sangre de Cristos and
Then the Front Range; there where all the dells
Are nestled waiting for tourists to come with
Skis and dollar bills after the first of the snows;
I went there when I was a child, and cradled in
My mother’s bosom as by the resounding basins;
And later on, scorned, I summited there alone,
And saw her spread infinite by ghostly wealth;
There are girls who sell wine I know from high school,
And I will salute them the same as the ones I used
To salute when I knew the alphabet of their homesteads
Riding the dependable bus into school;
And I will go until in my sister’s house, and then
The next day we will practice, and then the ceremony
Where she will change her name, if not her habits;
And, perhaps, when the strangers and relatives see me
There alike, they will think that he is wounded, so wounded,
And they will think that I should stay wounded still,
And I must, but if I were to show them pictures of Steinbeck,
They would agree that, yes, he was wounded, and Whitman,
If not wounded, queer, and Bukowski, yes, wounded, proud
Of it, then I should be justified and thus prove the theory
Of my relations with great men; and they would say,
Why then are you not also great, if you are so wounded,
But I should say not a thing, but walk down the aisle and
Take my place, and wait for my sister to be given away
By my father; and, yet, say not a thing, looking at them,
Knowing I am wounded when they never shall be, and
That is good, because not everyone should have to suffer so,
And then drive back down alongside the new homes of married
Women, grateful that they should not have to see me,
But should think of me still, subconsciously, along side better
And more glorious men.