The World That Was Already There Poem by Robert Rorabeck

On fieldtrips we go, slipping into the murals of
Catastrophe:
Our five year old hearts beating over our five year
Old feet,
And our tennis shoes we didn’t tie: and after the
Movie theatre or the communal pool,
We will go home to parents who are still growing
Up too;
And our mother will bathe us and shampoo,
And in the schoolless afternoons,
She will take us to the backyard canal and show us
Tadpoles in their busy school,
And tell us how they will change right beneath our
Eyes,
As rainbows peer down at olive trees, showing
Their promise to serpents bundled there-
As conquistadors cenotaph across the street with pornography-
While all of this time, the roads we knew stopped
At the canal, the very edge of the world,
And kidnappers repeated back and forth underneath the
Anonymous airplanes- until finally there were graveyards
And tomorrows and tomorrows of yesterday-
Somehow metamorphosed, we went back to there- the street
Was widened and paved- it went straight over her canal
Without stopping to look both ways,
And the rock garden our mother planted next to the drainage
Where the puppies the butterflies enchanted were
Not there:
Were not there on either side of the street: it just continued
On, and on and I am afraid straight into
The world that was already there.