To Bless And Weep Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I say I love you even as the petals weep and I don’t
Even know or not if you’ve been counting sheep,
And it hurts my soul that I had to lower my jaw and let you on
Hope, like the lowest scoops of the
Ferris wheel, like all of the white girls reading this and knowing
That I am not real;
But I am here waiting at the bottom of the teal, like an innocent
Drawn in its bathtub, Alma, I know that you can feel,
And I have been high up in our state, like the hot air balloons over
The lookouts of Ocala where you might even come to live;
But I will come down again, Alma, to kiss the soft pearly sheen of
Your lips, While even the stewardesses are asking what they
Can serve, to the burly men who don’t even deserve;
And maybe it is that even now I can smell you, Alma; and I can
Kiss your sheep high in the airy basins who blow the syllables of your
Name, and who need no other reasons to bless and weep.