Of Strange Lilacs Poem by Robert Rorabeck

When the warm liquor lactates through the
Caesuras of these bones:
Off home, like a little girl curled away and sucreased
Off of school buses
Waiting for a family with her palm out stretched
Before the television-
And her mother is outside in the penumbra of a
Blue church surrounded
By dragonflies who very soon will have to turn in-
With the night filled with cats
Who are homeless and making love-
And the girl is without a father:
There are hurricanes in the east, and helicopters in
Tandem in the sky-
She remembers jumping rope as a man who isn’t
There sky walks- she thinks there is a
Beautiful illusion somewhere hidden in the coloring
Books she left out in the rain,
But until then there will be more of this- beautiful
Epitaphs of wildflowers who have gone into
The ground, hibernating after making love at the very
Base of the mountain- in the meadows
Of strange lilacs to wildcats and grizzly bears.