What You Can Become.... Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Though the whole night screams,
I can only whisper silently with my brown eyes
Who have to do their job across country—
Where they look up at constellations, maps
To your pretty eyes as they bat about unabated
In the places you work and play—
There you go surfing again, your entire young
Body wet and in motion communicating with the
Other young and healthy bodies moving
About with you—
Seldom do you take a break from your gambols,
And when you look up the stars seem just stars,
Immeasurable gaseous bodies that punctuate the
Black tarp, under which you might have a drink
With others of your species, but that’s all they are—

The same way as when your thoughts may fall
In passing upon me, a boy who once circulated you
A couple times at most, icy and distant, a nameless comet
That still turns about primarily unobserved, as is my
Wish, except with you— For you are right, I am
Just a boy, rather flawed but harmless, though I have
Been through space and have seen the stars up close,
And know them to be much like you, immeasurable
And heavenly bodies, circling about through the voids
Of light and darkness, set into their spirals—

If you take my hand the next time I come by you,
Say in a few decades or so, then I can show you who they
And you are and, with me, what you can become….