The Wiser Of The Few Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Epitaphs prick with blood,
And each dropp is a hidden chain,
Woven by the puckish goddess,
Who chooses her men whimsically
Back when this hemisphere was just a nebula-
In the shapes of O’Keefes’ glorious
Floral throats, exploding,
Saying the hidden name repeatedly,
Like a gun going off over the mysterious hills,
Killing the glutinous wolves one at a time:
And putting the orchestra back up in the air,
The harmony of the new born kids
Who have yet to choose the color they will be:
The pastoral bloom of the unconscious genius
Drooling on his goose down pillow
Before the army comes to burn the house,
And requisition the livestock of his bucolic nocturnes:
Against the attic’s darkened window,
And the blown out candle a waxy antimatter,
Absolving the absence of faith limpidly;
About the heavens’ nightstand,
The scientists patter like ghosts, or albino mice;
And she is still there:
Sometimes a nightingale, but more often a housecat,
Tamed by the durations of eons,
Like a grandmother, weary but still in love
With the sleepers who lie down beneath the sill
She cleans herself, and occasionally remembers
To make a meal out of the wiser of the few.