Only Trying To Survive Poem by Robert Rorabeck

My mother takes me to the beach before
The shore-

There from her little car we go first to the
Swings,
And I imagine then the arc of motion,
The happy time and blondness,

And it is almost as if I have blue eyes,
And have found the glass of a medieval and
Aquamarine civilization

Simply at my feet,
As if something the sea has spit up almost
Like a pet,
And then to swim away and play with the dolphins
Whose form is good for selling
Jewelry to tourists;

And they converted the old hotel into a Catholic
School,
And that is the oldest city,
And some time ago-

My mother moans upstairs from sex,
And this house is so young, but it is almost cancelled;


And the waves are still so burnished,
Doing their best to look pretty even though they
Are only trying to survive.