From The Seasides Of His Homesick Canal Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Destroyed by the sunshine in the monuments
Of loneliness:
Everyday getting up and quivering at the treeless
Summit, looking down into the
Greenness of valleys populated
By people and marionettes: thinking of doing
Good things,
And then dividing: like plagiarists and scientists,
Losing ears and noses:
To be replaced by gold and comets,
And other strange voices
The students only hear when they are alone;
And in the carport, and
At night, after the rabbits have exhausted all of their
Wishes,
And are sacrificed in the rock gardens by
The dogs and their vulpine grins:
And the carnivals are all tamed and starting out,
And the kidnappers are all stargazing under
The blue and cerulean banners,
And the grizzly bears all are praying:
And my muse is not even born, but when she is
It is in Michuacan, Mexico into a world I have never
Seen and for seventeen years
Until she is pregnant and traveling across the frontera
Into America until all of this way, so finally she takes my
Hand and occasionally falls in love with me,
Fleetingly, burning out like fireworks, like doves falling
Asleep into peace only to be burned home again,
As I brush her brow and kiss her-
And wait for her to call me: Alma, Alma, until she falls
Asleep in her distance like the daylight of
All that I’d hoped for; and I call to her through the cascading
Orchestras of my loneliness- pitiful and malformed
Through the amber playgrounds;
For her to rise again and caress me, cherishing,
As if a browned eyed goddess moving winged from a bird bath,
Slipping into my sight again,
As sleek as an otter serenading the housewives from the seasides
Of his homesick canal.