Despite Mortality. Poem by RIC BASTASA

as others lose their
way, he was there constant
on his faith,

this way is always the
way and no other

he meets everybody, and
everything

the laughing enemy, the
muddy stone, the longing mother
the ever complaining son
the drunkard

stars collide, moons wane,
suns splinter into bits of flints

the grasses have turned into flowers
rivers become cities

oceans of aircraft carriers, and loquacious
leaders smiling on TV

I only need Tolstoy's short story about
man's need of a land, six feet under his

bones are kept, and then a marker, a niche,
flowers growing on top of his rotten body


a man walks sometimes without a purpose
another one sits facing the see counting boats

you know what the seagulls are after
only fish, and nothing more

a boy plays on the sands of the beach
what does he really think of? we know

when we begin to recall, when what we
did was only play the whole day and when

mother calls us to come home we always
feel that the play is not over and we want

some more, which makes us reminisce our
birth right to selfishness...always incomplete

always in need, despite the abundance,
despite this paradise, despite mortality.