When All The Woods Are Black Poem by Robert Rorabeck

What can live in this sea
When all the woods are all black, but the sky is still blue
Without even thieves, the robbers of her fretful eyes.
Where the feet in their cerulean stockings stick out like
Hoods in the waxy hollies;
Where the thwarted flies bother.
This place has been here forever, but the women
Have all been stolen by the gods no one believes anymore,
And the sea retains the hints of their claret leave-takings
The grass’ green is turning chartreuse, and snakes
Live coiled in balls where it has gone unmowed,
And cars rust on cinderblocks down the throat of the steep
Hills, the darkness of the black woods beginning to
Eclipse their taciturn chassis;
The grottos here in the nape of mountains are without pieta,
And motionless in algae and purplish lilies
Who do not sing, nor do maidens step blood-pricked
Out from brambles, nor the secret chests of aspens,
For eyes forage here, but they do not wander nor bight their lips;
The school in the little clearing is quite extinct, though
Each square in the linoleum floor is well mopped
And in good geometry, for neither sex has moped across it
For some time; This is the beautiful valley of her dressing room,
But she has been stolen away by a sucker quarterback
With good aim, now all the forest is beautifully meaningless
When all the woods are all black, but the sky is still blue.