Cadmus’ Amnesia Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Even when the sky is full of disaster,
Tell me, what can they take from you-
When you have hidden the hungry mouths
Scattered in the silken forest,
Tossed into the hyperactive rivers,
Furrowed with the serpent’s fang
In an opulent blanket provided by the needing moon:
So early in the morning from this
Your friends up sprang, bellicose and frightened
Born decorated in the instruments of their careers
Already they began maiming their old fellows
The clanging, persistent greetings killers give,
Until like a woman unjustly wed,
They fell back to slumber pell-mell
In all parts the catastrophe
All this the red lizard watched
Tasting the act on his budded tongue
Not far in the forest, curled about
The top most coned bows of a fur tree
Like smoldering garland draped there
By a wicked woman who sang nakedly
The promises which whisper in wells
To little doe-eyed children who bend over
To give their ears a listen
Further and further
Until down and down they fell.