Coming Around Poem by Robert Rorabeck

They didn’t like what I said:
I told them they were going to die,
And after the patterns scattered like
Seeds blown into the earth by time’s
Autumn wind,
They would never think of her again,
Nor see her glittery gown
Strung out like New York addicts
Copping for tricks on their street,
The way the Indians died early in the show,
Butchered by the Spanish knives of silver,
Their bows no longer arching after the divine does
Through the splay of sunlight through the palm fronds.
So they too will go,
Some before and some after their mothers.
They will recede like the tide of a salty sea—
Their pains will not linger. Their thoughts will not stray,
For time does not tarry upon men such as these,
But sets to work cleaning house for
The new guests and the new lovers.
Everything they ever learned will be cast out
And found to be falsehood,
And their old neighborhoods will gradually
Fill with strangers of another race
Of the same socioeconomic class….
Where other men will say of them what they will,
But it will make no difference,
For death does not listen but goes
Straight for the ending. He takes their wives,
As he takes their lovers…. With no remorse,
He takes them down, and he will not listen to anything
They say,
For even now he is too busy
Coming around.