Feral Mother Poem by Robert Rorabeck

It is easier not to make a sound.
Sound is the coming apart of words in
The imperfect senses of our mistaken
Reality:
Language, the social construct imposed
Upon our minds
Like birth—Thought, inseparable from
Death, taught to us in school,
Senses sharing a common cause
In a neighborhood that shelters us.

The earth shelters the coffins and does not speak.
The multitudes without headstones are there
As they were before,
Matter animated for awhile
With the purpose of finding a job
That hopefully meets the status quo:

The rain speaks lucidly of this without saying
A word.
Nature is constantly wanting to take you back into
Her.
The forest is throwing her hearth of green
Arms,
But men, awakened by the minds of others,
Mistakenly deem themselves apart.

They have built homes to live apart from her
And airplanes to leap across her wet appetites
And warm caves;
But I look for her when I am alone
And not with other men.
I remember that I am an orphan stolen
To lie in beds,
To eat the meals that humanity has prepared for
Me,

While she watches me like a feral mother,
With a heart of beating oceans,
With Appalachian breasts,
With jaws of sincere obliteration.