Without Even Knowing Why Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The ships of dead kings sleep underneath the
Mabinogean orchards- and you have stepped across
The cinderblocks and rebar;
And the cars on blocks seem to know your name;
And all the pigeon wire making love in strange
Suppositions up into the unearthly sky,
Maybe they know who you are even if I can’t;
And this is why I sit out with myself
And try to change colors, wishing I was more of a cowboy
For you;
But that is all there is too it; and your day is your own day:
It is just one single candle, and yet the jellyfish still seem
To be dying any way they can upon the shore
Next to the luxurious grottos; and I still have both my ears,
And my nostrils like comely biceps that pick up
And weight lift your smell like unbridled bouquets:
Kelly, Kelly; today is your day; and everyday is your day
In the valleys that wake up and coil like rattlesnakes
All the way down the switchbacks of tourists with eyes too bright
To every find your gold,
While the rivers go roaring diving your folds, and your children
Sit out on the bleachers and wait to be picked up
Swinging their eyes into the batting cages of the very dreams which
Divided them into the real live earth underneath this burning sky;
And like them, Kelly, I love you without even knowing why.