Each Unbothered Nod Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Glorify the homeless man,
The one we stole the world from:
He who tramps without shelter of home,
Without junction of wife, or yet fully grown
Caress of children: Glorify him,
And his marvel of beard, and
Name each of his scars as the constellations,
And road maps, so that we might see by them,
He who has never know the prostitution of
Business, nor the condemning judgment of
Peers; never reciprocated with the foibles
Of the classrooms of gaseous ego,
Who picks up nothing but what is of immediate
Use, who loves nothing but the open wounds of
Sky, or, casually, the entrained lovers of business
Men as they pass by insouciantly air-conditioned:
Love him, the continuing transcendentalist,
Whose teeth have disappeared from the malnourishment
Of tasteful enterprise: find him, unwashed as the
Tramping messiah of boxcars, the underpasses his hooded
Cradles, the enthralled forest his lexicon;
Kneel there in the hermitage of humilities: his wealthy
Silences, and the purities of simplicity, which baptize
Thoughtlessly as he proceeds down the verdant uncontained
Hallways, the waves leaping like silver dogs of unrequited
Fidelity: the road so surely his element, that he goes
Down just as unknowingly, encompassed by sunlight as
By twilight, and the dusky hues of her unwedded dress,
Blindly feeling her as if awakened newly metamorphosed
From each unbothered nod, each unburdened repose.