Quietly, The Lake Intercedes Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’m not here, but the traffic moves,
Doesn’t it- all day? That is inevitable, back to
And forth from work- through the shady shadows
And the palms, so close to the persuading gravity the
Sea takes on from the moon:
So even when you cannot see it is there, like beautiful
Ancestors lounging in graveyards too careless now to
Say a thing. Not worried much about us anymore,
The avenues once patrolled through the singular prevalence
Of human desire- Like these words I flick away
Trying to blind immortality so that he might fall into me
And sleep, before I get too fat and lazy to go out and stroll
The shore for new mermaids, the inevitable curves that will
Certainly come, but will never happen again once they are
Over- Surely now, the novel will not find its voice,
Not even for the experienced older gentlemen whose time
Has come; but certainly people are outside even now,
Kissing, brushing slightly and considering marriage. In fact,
I am sure of it: We are all doing all that we know how.