Fools Like Us. Poem by RIC BASTASA

There is this theory in conversation.
I keep on talking. When you are around we let the river flow
and we listen. Sometimes you drop a stone.
Sometimes, i break a twig.
There are sounds which come between
The silence that we try to grow among the ferns.

We talk like sands falling hoping to land upon a dune
and see a palace.

Or a treasure which time has marked with an X
AND in those layers of exchanges, we arrive at some
truths, like pagodas that we never saw before despite
our familiarity with old terrains.

And then we know. What is it? Why is that?
and then we learn
Who we are? and Why we must accept

Fools like us.