Orchards are made of men who <br />Cannot sleep—as fairies sleep in the cabbages and <br />Pumpkins: <br />And they drink teardrops of farmers who <br />Have lost their fairest daughters to the town <br />Drunkards— <br />But these other men do not turn into werewolves: <br />They come down from the thorny backs of bric-a-brac <br />Mountains, carrying with them their sacks of <br />Antlers and arrowheads—and when they <br />Get underneath the fullest premonitions of the moon <br />Metamorphosis, as I've said— <br />Themselves into orchards—that the Mexicans come into <br />And baptized and eat apples under with the coral <br />Snakes—until the lazing otters come up the bank <br />And proselytize to them like preachers over <br />The working congregations of army ants: <br />Asking them to change again, to set an example for <br />The tadpoles: <br />What will they remember then, and where will they <br />Find themselves—as the most jaded of individuals try to <br />Cartograph the hemisphere they sea at night <br />Until the gods give up to themselves, <br />Absolving in nebulas that bloom like the riches nebulas <br />Up above all of the neighborhoods swathed with men.<br /><br />Robert Rorabeck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-neighborhoods-swathed-with-men/
