For Fear Of Doing Wrong Poem by Robert Rorabeck

For fear of doing wrong,
I have done none for many years,
And it has made me hungry
And aware of all the strange women in the world
Walking about like transmogrified deer
In the shopping malls,
Leaping like infant sun coils
Halfway dressed in the tennis courts,
Or outside in the green lawns surrounding
Their rented domiciles,
Though I have forgotten that certain whistling,
That trilling call from the back of ones throat,
Which takes sometimes years to master,
To turn their heads my way,
To start their hearts beating like
Little frightened birds careening amidst
The power lines,
Chased by the persistent hawk:
Sometimes I see them calmly skipping rope
And hopping through the a labyrinth
Outlined in chalk,
And I would have liked to stop what
I’d been doing to join them,
To bring together in so many ways
Nature’s harbingers of life:
Here it is, and there it was now,
But to do so would certainly be
Some kind of wicked folly,
For I have tried it before, and it all went bad,
And now the pain lingers:
A mark, a scar, an unpleasant scent,
So in this spring, as the cherry trees blossom
Like opening silk vests,
I can only walk by and watch the fruit
Fall criminally from its bowers,
Leaving me to walk away empty handed,
For fear of going some wrong course,
Leaving young smiles to linger in sadness.