They Too Are Changed Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Forever wanting to build up,
Because of gravity,
Human beings are still a low level creature:
Our bones are not hollow and yet we fly,
Even though now and again we fireball just
Like mythology into the sea:
And there are no more verdant islands rising
Like white corks from the oceans with singular
Talking pools, and a white horse prancing about,
With perfectly definable days and nights;
But now we have suburbias and washers and
Dryers which tumble our flesh into clean and
Warm, and viaducts of eyes which run in
Stages over shelves of imported specialties:
The greatest symphony where I am at is the traffic,
Which keeps tempo with the traffic lights,
The constant wear of the tires as they break against
The natural order, as waves dash themselves upon
The shoals like kamikazes, leaving offerings of
Ruby urchins, and secretive anemones;
And after all of this is over, I will drive with them
In that river back west to hibernate and play video-
Games, or go back to college: but I have loved
Her from afar while I was here, and open-mouthed
Watched her leaping over the earth in her idealic jaunts,
Or like fire ants coming out doors to be punched into
Work for their queen, masticating on the finest liquids
Until they have it fermented and caking their jaws;
And we seem to walk here like shadows stealthily surveying
The womb, not yet realizing who we are, still trying
To jump into a brighter world, and floating for a little while
Like a festival of balloons in Albuquerque, NM,
Surveying the stars, and the icy necklace of the Keiper Belt,
Until she pulls us back down again,
Makes us wearied and senile, and licks us like a little
Girl with her ice-cream cone as she preambles the zoo, lazily
Surveying the surrounding habitats, until she has lost her
Parents, and there is nothing of her sticky treat, just our
Bones in a fine pulp yet around her finger tips:
She nods away on a bench in the butterfly house,
And all the butterflies come down and cover her in a
Fleeting coat, unwittingly poisoning her, changing
Her yet into something else, as they too are changed.