Remembering The Simpler Days Of Your Life Poem by RIC BASTASA

it was when your excitement
was only the strong wind
for the ripe mango to fall for
you to pick

it was when your sadness
was only about a failing grade
on a math quiz

it was when your happiness
was the carabao ride
from your nipa hut to
the public school

it was when your sweetness
was tasted by your mama
like an icing from a cake

it was when your escape
was the plunge in the river
with your naked friends


it was when your conversations
are about fairies and princesses
and frogs and lost shoes


it was when the coolness was
the thick grasses spreading
on the plains

it was when joy was the playing
and bathing under the rain
on the month of November

now these changes have made
things more complicated
people hard to deal with and
a self that is deeper, darker
and difficult to really understand.