The Neighborhoods Swathed With Men Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Orchards are made of men who
Cannot sleep—as fairies sleep in the cabbages and
Pumpkins:
And they drink teardrops of farmers who
Have lost their fairest daughters to the town
Drunkards—
But these other men do not turn into werewolves:
They come down from the thorny backs of bric-a-brac
Mountains, carrying with them their sacks of
Antlers and arrowheads—and when they
Get underneath the fullest premonitions of the moon
Metamorphosis, as I've said—
Themselves into orchards—that the Mexicans come into
And baptized and eat apples under with the coral
Snakes—until the lazing otters come up the bank
And proselytize to them like preachers over
The working congregations of army ants:
Asking them to change again, to set an example for
The tadpoles:
What will they remember then, and where will they
Find themselves—as the most jaded of individuals try to
Cartograph the hemisphere they sea at night
Until the gods give up to themselves,
Absolving in nebulas that bloom like the riches nebulas
Up above all of the neighborhoods swathed with men.