Underneath Her Bonfires Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I still read my stuff to the lions of
Rum,
After the lights have turned out,
After the heroes are home:
And I am out of job—
The carnival of bric-a-brac
Has turned away:
The sea has gone away with the
Other tourists.
The housewives have turned in
With their best or at least their
Better men:
And the one or two muses are
In their graveyards—
And they are so cold that they
Do not need to be warm—
And there is a green cloud in
The sky
Following the way the eyes of
The witch moves—
But she is just keeping the thoughts
To herself—
Whenever she means to she can make
The graveyards spring to life—
And all of her loves that are buried
Backwards so that they are
Facing the monuments of canyons
Instead of sunshines,
Can spring to it like jack-in-the-boxes—
Can call heaven to her shoulders
To cloak her in daisies fondled by apiaries—
To make the sea foam a heaven underneath
Her bonfires,
To hold its breath and think of her,
And see her
As a muse as she stands there
Almost believing that she is enough.