Evergreen Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I have stopped watching the movie,
But it shouldn’t matter,
Because its only black and white;
Even the dogs could identify it.
And though I am now doing nothing,
I have stopped dreaming and spend
Hours looking at a photograph of a girl
Who should make the world spin,
But she doesn’t sell used cars,
And the landlord is so fretful for this month,
Her beauty couldn’t help, but she doesn’t
Worry, and plays with her new husband in
The snow, and this weather compliments her
And keeps time, even though all the birds have
Gone. The mountains loom, and even
Then from the front door there are quite so
Many bears hibernating in the indentations
And the folds, snoring through anonymity,
So far away from the ocean, and the salty
Cuts of high school, and the truancies smoking
Cigarettes, and the insignificant games of
Eyes. The mountains build their own weather,
As if jealous lovers holding blankets to them,
Teary eyed in the dark,
But I have stepped on their highest summits,
Trailing away from tourists who glut there on
Her beauty, and should make her rich by and by.
She shouldn’t even see me,
Though I have walked high above her doorstep,
Disappearing in a storm, and down again
I cross her street, and the world slumbers like
A beautiful merry-go-round to which children
Sleepwalk, and in the morning she should arise
In the perfect climate, freezing,
Seeing herself in the weather, as the bows of
Trees proclaim her, and the mountains her
Cathedral, rising up in patriotic basins spilling
Down to her, the places I have seen.