In Choosing Simplicity Poem by RIC BASTASA

friends have gone abroad
for greener pastures and they always make
all the reasons: children in college,
a husband to support, a mortgage to pay,
a house, a new lot,
relatives in the province needing help,

in my simple ways i chose to stay
in this country
thriving on vegetables from my garden,
a government job, though it does not pay much
but i can serve well
my own people,

perhaps there is something more to this decision,
i can take my morning walks
breath fresh air from the sea
reflect by the river
see the kingfisher catching a fish
hear the chirps of newly hatched fledgelings
on their nests
simple pleasures that i have already
gotten used to
which i cannot dispense with

in fact, this i can say
i do not have much like the dollars they earned
in the USA or Canada
but i am more of what i am
when i reduce all these
in poetry.