A Thirst Of The Past Lives Poem by RIC BASTASA

... AND then there is a thirst
that long upon some buried jars in the waters of our past lives

we want to clearly remember what we were once

was i that? were you that?
why do i feel something for you which is
by the scales of reason
without weight?

i see clouds, and then the tips of the mountains appear,
and then i fall into that land

which gives me nothing but another form of forgetting

and then i look back at you, and there is this sense of disbelief
and reason with its head shakes endlessly

no, not that, it is something else why you are being brought here
but your heart tells otherwise

it is boat with fire and it is sinking carrying with it all the
screams of your being here

and then back to a silky ocean, back to the lines of the shore
without crease, or anything that one remembers, and so delighted

to forget like a wave upon wave
in order to keep the island compact
the air blows, like the soul that you keep.