The Silence That Is Out There Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Modern algebra in the hotspot of
A tourniquet—Or, how you hurt me, father,
Made of the lances to faithful abandoned
From the high school you didn't believe
In and never graduated from:
Blooming, burning buildings as the heavens
Spin and illuminate above us: turning, turning
Brilliant and never to be spoken for,
For more than a dance in the ballroom—
Spilled, and accumulative—
Silent joke of the flowers giving their lives for
The weddings—
As words break into the colors upon the ballrooms
Of an orchard—and all the silence that is
Out there opens its throat, as if wanting to—
But not daring to
Sing.