Things Which Must Yet Be Spoken Poem by Robert Rorabeck

After dusk, the sky is so blue and quiet,
Like a fair shut down
Somewhere near the sea,
The clouds so white and thin like prayers of
Little girls who do not know any better,
Who are still waiting for the waves to bring
Back their vanished fathers-
I read some Gwendolyn Brooks from a
Norton Anthology,
I look at houses in the tiny greenesses where
I think I should belong,
And a picture of my grandmother smiling
Cobwebbed in the shadows
Doesn’t know anything- Doesn’t know
How much more beautiful her sons and daughters could’ve
Been without her matriarchal influences,
How people can change into beautiful fish
Swimming in the sky, if they know their own languages for
The things which must yet be spoken,
Even as the waves return and disappear,
And the cars travel down the highway, their bright beams
Like lighthouses searching
For a home which cannot be explained.