Such A Day Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The day gives me swell light for my mind to
Fumble through the highest basins of these well-burnished
Meadows,
Above the cars and waves alike,
Above her auburn cascade,
Droop of lip and eye-contemplative, then the uphill curves
Of approving body language pressed to the gas,
Circling like thorny eagles some slick cul-de-sac

and the places she
Has chosen to forget, like a drooling infant
I skim across the field, like the dragonfly newly budded
Yet without much scorn or excuses to try its barb:
Propelled by some close at hand divine retinue yet exposed but
Done fishing and putting my hands up stone.
I could love her from here, if I could remember
The song I was singing to her this morning as I did my
Best to lather away my narcoleptic scars which hibernate
Like beastly marks cloving my hooded body,
Trying to whistle but debating,
Like darker and darker rings the fretful doodles of a
Mortal sinner talking haplessly to the solicitor on the phone;
Turning his key in the ignition, leaving his home

Too old to get married but still batting;
But now on this unsure avenue both widely and lost
I give a pause and
Watch airplanes and thinking of far away stewardesses serving
Their expensive liquors not unlike her, like candles’ flames
Thrown in a vase,
Their shell-pink engines skipping,
The winged exhibit silk streamed, bosomy and also perfumed;
Yet even above my head their legs are echoing
Along the slick avenues of their flying chassis,
The uproarious sorority paid to visit relatives-

Beneath all that,
The waves make a teal castanet, beautiful but of no
Consequence for every which way it is going, it might be going wrong;
It is certainly turning around again, recognizing itself at a loss
And I must continue down to the next exit and decide
Should I get off heady from the lure of the citrus pistil and bloom,
The day laborers singing the darker man’s song,
Put orbs into baskets trailing ash and rum,
Down again to where the leathery vendors are dancing in their
Appointed apertures of supermarkets and salons.

To buy a house here and to recede,
To get out of the way, and hold her neck at the
Right moment and pull her towards me so that
They should say in her old dorms there is no more partings:
to make love to her
And brave my song first placed into her ear,
A pearl of tongued calm relinquished by the end of the line to
The next available teller trained to smile.
Would that she were nearer to be certain that she was,
The reason for a little amusement, but instead

The great uncertainty
Of the surface level groves give me pause;
Even though they are swaying in freckled pageantry and the only
Excuse I have to feather the trembling heart is that
All my ancestors now dead have walked here before and held her
Hand for me until I could come;
They have gossiped about me and painted her eyes with
The places through which I have traveled,
And held her back from the natural inclination to steam
To the docks and greet the soldiers returning for the war
With a bend of the knee and slip of the skirt- They have done their best
To remove her liquor,
To gently seed and tuck in well-furrowed, giving me a direction
To begin to work my unfamiliar charms,
To cast my nets over her in rutted whispers,
To pull her towards me like a ribbon or eel from
The tangles of rustling mangroves or saw grass swamps-

To lie down here atop the
Spinning old world, hopefully in the oldest town in America
To mingle with the tourists and their youthfully foolish exchanges,
To spume far beneath the highest basins catching clouds,
Gathering them up and holding them until they turn green
And envious but provide shade and conversation,
To hear those galloping waves so close to our door that by
Next morning they have come in like oil workers tromping about,
Wanting breakfast,
And her to get busy for us all under the shadow less sprigs
Of the confounded sun,
Turning to each other framed by a cerulean window
Showing us where we have settled, and that such a day has come.