Maidenhood Of Patriotism Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The sun is going down,
And there is no place to hide,
But the horrors are so familiar
They are good enough for friends:
We drink alone with the dogs,
Each one of us an angle in the divinity
Trying our best not to look our
Reflections in the eye- And we’ve been
Shopping and had the chance to see how
Wrecked and sweet America is,
So that we would like to move into her
Repeatedly in the same old fashion as all
Those conquistadors and car salesmen,
And she doesn’t condescend- She is quite demure
With her chest bare and mowed, and homeless
Kittens purring between the gravestones she
Wears as a somber necklace;
And the insects are making noise, softly irritating,
As is their ritual,
And the lake is a fare mural over her pale blue
Shoulders, and all the fish are breathing quietly just
Beneath the surface:
How strange we must look becoming dimmed by the
Eloping dusk, the three of us drinking on the ridge
Addressing problems of our dogs’ flea-bitten theology;
And down beneath in the park, I am taking her
As she is personified, maidenhood of patriotism, marble and busty-
She keeps her lips pursed, and her eyes directed,
Open and trusting while the traffic divides the two churches
Of our souls, militant and divine,
And there is nothing to say as I am looking down
Into her immortalities: that I do not know her name
As she whispers, thrusting, monumental.