The Eyes To Find All Of The Hidden Birthday Presents Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Another place in the meadow
Tumbled down from the side of a forgotten king—
I suppose we can stay here awhile at least until
The sunlight is replaced by lightning,
And the tourists who once stepped here in their abeyance
Came down to kiss the minnows in valleys,
Realizing that they were the charlatans,
The divine pawns bedecked in their finest mental absence—
Like school teachers and drill sergeants,
And I can pretend to find you right here,
In a library, in a cornucopia of misspelled supermarkets
Spilled out of the heaven’s baskets,
And the bosoms of the mountains—five year olds’ fingers
Fondling the grapes and the paper backs—
And languish and contrive, pretending to have the strength
To pull elk antlers from the darkened forest—
Pretending to have the eyes to find all of the hidden
Birthday presents—
And laconic joys that happen as the waves practice their
Abeyance at the feet of the stone crossed cenotaphs.