Cause For René Char Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Rene Char died at 80- I keep getting empty
Searches for him, scars of constellation on a bleary night
Of street cars. It has been so long since I’ve walked with
A girl, held her hand and she didn’t apologize, or look away
And think of pools dressed with other women,
Swimming like gold leaf to the somnolence of the satellite
Garlanded by commercial airlines: Renee Char in France,
Long entangled orange groves beneath the Roman forts twith the cloven
Footsteps of goateed wine drinkers,
Sommeliers on the hoof, ritual of stony vineyards:
I was virginal, hopeful- A Spanish artist, a mother and housewife
Just in Port Bo, kin to Salvador Dali, loved me when I
Drew caracoles of lavender on her son’s desk- When I’d
Never read Rimbaud, when I went out tramping for a copper
Cannon, she called down from the roof with her friend that she was
In love- In love- Oh, to be in love again- Oh, if she were to read
My poems about her; if I could find out more about Rene Char,
Or have the chance to skip summer school again, to in my mind
Envision punching the principle in the jaw- To have a good and
Steady job far away from the lunch meat horses, the sandwiches
Of my upstairs parents- To rearrange the common occurrences of
Neighborhoods of dead ex-girlfriends, to imbibe the beauty of a
Two week youth again, to time warp on swing-sets in a boreal
Seventh Day Adventist Michigan, to water-ski to the lucidity of
Minor saints and professors enjoying soggy crackers and cheese,
To perambulate the cemetery, giving cause to wild blue ants and scientists
To explore, to get married and published, to live in Spain as another
Soul, another prick in the constellation, a lesser light to Rene Char,
Who isn’t even one of my favorites, but I’m doing him a favor tonight,
Giving him another séance amidst the foot soldiers of his elite cause,
To go down misspelled and speechless in the Somme,
To awaken metamorphosed, a gifted birthstone kept around her neck
As she goes out on her bicycle with a basket of varieties of pain,
Breathing around her neck, a cenotaph rimed from the sea, sighing
With her cause.